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.
A 128 km round trip from Nîmes - roughly 2 h 17 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pont du Gard, Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace and back through Pont du Gard. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Pont du Gard → Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace for 29 km.
Most Roman temples survive as a jumble of columns and a lot of imagination. The Maison Carrée in Nîmes is the exception: a complete temple, standing on its podium with its roof and columns intact, two thousand years after it was built for the grandsons of Augustus. It owes its survival to being constantly reused, as a meeting hall, a stable, a church and a museum. Thomas Jefferson admired it so much that he based the Virginia State Capitol on it, and in 2023 UNESCO finally listed it in its own right.
Read the complete The Maison Carrée of Nîmes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Maison Carrée of Nîmes is where the day begins. Next is Pont du Gard.
Built without mortar, three tiers of arches carry a water channel across the gorge of the Gardon nearly fifty metres above the river, and the stones still fit together as if they had been placed last week. The Pont du Gard was one section of an aqueduct some fifty kilometres long that brought spring water from near Uzès to Roman Nîmes in the first century, with a total drop of only a few metres over the whole distance. It is a masterpiece of surveying as much as building, and it has stood through floods that have destroyed far younger bridges.
Read the complete Pont du Gard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pont du Gard comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace.
For most of the fourteenth century, the popes lived in Avignon rather than Rome. In 1309, Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, settled here to escape the turmoil of Italian politics, and his successors built a vast palace, the Palais des Papes, the largest Gothic palace in Europe, with massive walls, towers and halls, more fortress than residence. Seven popes reigned here until 1377, when the papacy returned to Rome, and then rival popes continued to rule from Avignon during the Great Schism. The palace, the cathedral, the ramparts and the famous bridge, the Pont Saint-Bénézet, were listed by UNESCO in 1995.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace. Next is back through Pont du Gard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pont du Gard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pont du Gard, late in the day. Next is The Maison Carrée of Nîmes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Maison Carrée of Nîmes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The Maison Carrée of Nîmes. That is the ride.
The Maison Carrée of Nîmes → Pont du Gard is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pont du Gard → Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace → back through Pont du Gard is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pont du Gard → The Maison Carrée of Nîmes is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.