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.
305 km from Castelluccio dei Sauri to Castelluccio dei Sauri, about 6 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu, The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum, The Santa Sofia complex and 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
This part of the ride is 52 km of The Santa Sofia complex → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with .
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 is where the day begins. Next is The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu.
Trajan was an emperor who liked roads, and in about AD 109 he opened a new one to shorten the journey from Rome to Brindisi, the port for Greece and the East. The old Via Appia went the long way round, down through the marshes and the coast, and the Via Traiana cut inland from Benevento through the hills of Irpinia and across the Apulian plain. This section, from Beneventum toward the old stop of Aequum Tuticum near modern Ariano Irpino, crosses a country of rolling grain fields, hill villages and wind turbines turning on the ridges.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum.
East of Benevento, the Via Appia leaves the Calore valley and heads into the green, rolling hills of Irpinia on its long way to Brindisi, and near Venticano and Pietradefusi you are travelling over one of its quieter stretches. The road the Romans laid here is mostly lost under fields and later tracks, but the line still guides the landscape, and a short way south-east lie the remains of Aeclanum, near Mirabella Eclano, a Roman town that grew rich on the traffic. Benevento itself was the great junction: from here the original Appia ran over the hills to Venusia and Tarentum, while the Emperor Trajan built a faster route, the Via Traiana, through the plains of Apulia. His triumphal arch, raised in AD 114, still stands in Benevento, its reliefs remarkably sharp.
Read the complete The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum. Next is The Santa Sofia complex.
Benevento has been a crossroads for about as long as there has been a road to cross, but the Santa Sofia complex belongs to a particular chapter, the Lombards. In the eighth century the duchy of Benevento was the last Lombard power in southern Italy, and Duke Arechis II built Santa Sofia as his palace church, around the 760s. It is a strange, beautiful building, a hexagon surrounded by a ring of columns and walls, with an odd star-like plan that has puzzled architects ever since. Inside the plain stone are traces of frescoes, and the later Romanesque cloister next door is a lovely quiet square. It is part of the UNESCO listing for the Longobards in Italy, which came in 2011.
Read the complete The Santa Sofia complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Santa Sofia complex, about halfway. Next is 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with.
When Charles of Bourbon, king of Naples, decided to build a royal palace to rival Versailles, he did not do things by halves. The Reggia di Caserta, begun in 1752 to a design by Luigi Vanvitelli, is one of the largest royal palaces in the world, with some twelve hundred rooms, four inner courtyards, a theatre and a grand staircase that has appeared in films including Star Wars, where it stood in for the palace of Naboo. Behind it, a park stretches for three kilometres up the hillside, with fountains, statues and a long chain of pools and cascades fed by an aqueduct that Vanvitelli built specially, ending at a great waterfall at the top.
Read the complete 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with sits at 153 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Santa Sofia complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Santa Sofia complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Santa Sofia complex comes up about 205 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 224 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum. Next is back through The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu, late in the day. Next is The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 route ends here after 305 km.
The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia → The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu → The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum → The Santa Sofia complex is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Santa Sofia complex → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with → back through The Santa Sofia complex is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Santa Sofia complex → back through The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia on the route from Beneventum → back through The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu → The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.