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 341 km round trip from Benevento - roughly 6 h 47 in the saddle. On the way it passes 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with, Historic Centre of Naples, The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S and The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows The Santa Sofia complex → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with for 52 km.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Naples.
Naples is not a city you ride through so much as one you survive and then fall in love with. The historic centre, a UNESCO site since 1995, sits on the street plan of Neapolis, the Greek new city founded around the sixth century BC, and the three ancient decumani still run straight through it, the most famous being Spaccanapoli, the street that splits Naples in two. Along them, churches, palaces, shrines, workshops and laundry-hung alleys are packed together with an intensity found nowhere else in Europe.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Naples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Naples. Next is The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S.
The Via Appia, the Queen of Roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in 2024 UNESCO inscribed long stretches of it as a single World Heritage site. Near Mondragone, on the coast of northern Campania, the road passes the site of Sinuessa, a Roman colony that once guarded the route where it reached the sea after crossing the coastal plains from the north. Not a great deal stands above ground today, so this is a place where you read the landscape rather than tour the ruins.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S, about halfway. Next is The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae.
The queen of roads, the Romans called it: the Via Appia, begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, ran from Rome to Capua and later on to Brindisi, the gateway to Greece and the East. Near Formia, the old road comes down from the hills of Itri to the coast of the Gulf of Gaeta, and a stretch of it, with its paving stones and roadside monuments, survives in the countryside. In 2024, UNESCO listed the Via Appia as a whole, and this section between the eighty-third mile from Rome and the ancient town of Formiae is one of its pieces.
Read the complete The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae sits at 184 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Historic Centre of Naples.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Naples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 257 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Historic Centre of Naples. Next is back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 341 km.
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 → Historic Centre of Naples is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Naples → The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S → The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae → back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S → back through Historic Centre of Naples is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Naples → back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with → The Santa Sofia complex is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.