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.
292 km from Matera to Matera, about 5 h 06 of riding. It goes by way of Quartiere Monti, The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast, Brundisium and back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 50 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Matera is one of those places where the first view genuinely changes the mood of a day. You walk to the edge of the modern town, look down, and there are the Sassi: two hollows in the limestone filled with houses stacked on top of each other, their roofs serving as streets for the houses above, churches cut into the rock, staircases and alleys tumbling down to the edge of a deep ravine, the Gravina. Across the gorge, the Murgia plateau is riddled with caves and rock churches, some with Byzantine frescoes, used by monks and shepherds for over a thousand years. People have lived in these caves since prehistoric times, which makes Matera one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world.
Read the complete The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C is where the day begins. Next is Quartiere Monti.
Alberobello looks like a fairy tale for about the first thirty seconds, and then you start wondering how on earth the trulli stay up. These little round houses of limestone, with conical roofs built of flat stones stacked in rings and no mortar at all, are a building tradition unique to this corner of Puglia, and the Rione Monti quarter on the southern hill of town has the densest concentration of them anywhere, around a thousand packed along a few steep lanes.
Read the complete Quartiere Monti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quartiere Monti comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Between Ostuni and Brindisi, along the Adriatic coast of Puglia, ran the Via Appia Traiana, a road built by the emperor Trajan in the early second century as a faster alternative to the old Appian Way, carrying traffic to the port of Brundisium, the gateway to Greece and the East. In 2024, stretches of both roads were inscribed by UNESCO as Via Appia, Regina Viarum. Here the old route followed the coastal plain through olive groves, and traces of it, together with ancient settlements, can be found near the sea.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 117 km into the recorded legs you reach The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast. Next is Brundisium.
Brindisi is where the Appian Way ends, and the Romans knew it as Brundisium. The old road ran from Rome across southern Italy to this harbour, the gateway to Greece and the East, and a tall Roman column near the waterfront marks its final stretch; a second column stood beside it until it was taken to Lecce in the seventeenth century. The harbour itself is a long, sheltered inlet, a natural port that has served merchants, crusaders and armies for more than two thousand years.
Read the complete Brundisium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brundisium, about halfway. Next is back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast sits at 211 km, about halfway. Next is back through Quartiere Monti.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Quartiere Monti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Quartiere Monti comes up about 223 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C closes the day.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C → Quartiere Monti is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Quartiere Monti → The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → Brundisium is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brundisium → back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → back through Quartiere Monti is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Quartiere Monti → The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.