CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
367 km from San Ferdinando di Puglia to San Ferdinando di Puglia, about 6 h 23 of riding. It goes by way of Castel del Monte, The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley, The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia and back through The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley. The line favours views over speed.
In AD 109, the emperor Trajan opened a new road from Benevento to Brindisi, shorter and easier than the old Via Appia, and it crossed the plain of northern Puglia, past the ancient city of Canusium, today's Canosa di Puglia. Near Canosa, the road crossed the Ofanto river on a bridge whose Roman foundations still support a later structure. The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofanto crossing are part of the UNESCO listing of Via Appia, Regina Viarum, inscribed in 2024, and the plain around them is open, flat and fertile, a landscape of olive groves, vineyards and fields of wheat and artichokes.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is where the day begins. Next is Castel del Monte.
You see it long before you reach it: a pale stone crown sitting alone on a hilltop above the Murge plateau, visible for miles across the olive groves and wheat fields of northern Puglia. Castel del Monte was built in the 1240s for Emperor Frederick II, the brilliant and restless Hohenstaufen ruler whom contemporaries called the wonder of the world. It is perfectly octagonal, with eight octagonal towers at the corners and an octagonal courtyard in the middle, and nobody really knows what it was for. It has no moat, no stables, no obvious defensive purpose, which has fed centuries of theories about astronomy, geometry and mysticism. UNESCO listed it in 1996, and Italians carry it in their pockets: it is on the back of the one-cent euro coin.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castel del Monte comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley.
The Via Appia, the queen of roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in Basilicata it crossed the upland of the upper Bradano valley, a high, open country of wheat fields and rolling hills, near the towns of Venosa and Palazzo San Gervasio. In 2024 the Via Appia was listed as a World Heritage Site along its whole length, and here, in the empty farmland, the line of the road can be traced in field boundaries and tracks, with occasional fragments of paving and the ruins of way stations.
Read the complete The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley. Next is The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia.
There is nothing here that announces itself. What you have is a long, almost featureless landscape of grain, stubble and the odd masseria, and under it the line of a Roman road. The Via Traiana was commissioned by the emperor Trajan around 109 AD as a faster, drier alternative to the old Appia between Benevento and Brindisi, and the stretch from Aecae to Herdonia is one of the places where you can follow its logic: flat, direct, and aimed at the next town.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia, about halfway. Next is back through The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley sits at 211 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castel del Monte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castel del Monte comes up about 322 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan closes the day.
The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan → Castel del Monte is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castel del Monte → The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley → The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia → back through The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley → back through Castel del Monte is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castel del Monte → The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.