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.
266 km from Buonalbergo to Buonalbergo, about 4 h 41 of riding. On the way it passes The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia, The Sanctuary of San Michele and back through The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Sanctuary of San Michele.
Few pilgrimage sites in Europe sit as dramatically as this one, high on the spur of the Gargano peninsula, the spur on Italy's boot. Monte Sant'Angelo is a white town draped along a ridge about eight hundred metres above the sea, and the sanctuary of San Michele is built into a natural cave below the main street. Tradition holds that the Archangel Michael appeared to the local bishop here at the end of the fifth century, and the cave has drawn pilgrims ever since: Lombards who made it their national shrine, Norman knights, crusaders on their way to the Holy Land, and the faithful of every age. You enter down a long flight of steps, eighty-six of them by the usual count, and the air cools as you descend. Inside, the rock itself is part of the church, damp and bare, with a statue of the archangel and centuries of carved and painted additions around it. It was inscribed as part of the Longobards in Italy World Heritage listing in 2011.
Read the complete The Sanctuary of San Michele write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 134 km into the recorded legs you reach The Sanctuary of San Michele. Next is back through 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.
back through The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia, late in the day. Next is 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 at The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu. That is the ride.
The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu → The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia → The Sanctuary of San Michele is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Sanctuary of San Michele → back through The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia is 75 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia → The Appia Traiana from Beneventum to Aequu is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.