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.
From Itri it runs 428 km to Itri; allow about 6 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Abruzzo, Villa d'Este and back through Abruzzo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It climbs into the mountains.
Ancient Rome's first great highway, the Via Appia, was begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, and it ran from Rome south to Capua and later on to Brindisi on the Adriatic. At Itri, in the hills behind the Gulf of Gaeta, it squeezes through a narrow pass between the Monti Aurunci and the sea, and the road still crosses the same gap today. A stretch of the old paved line survives near the pass, with its big, rounded basalt blocks, though you will need to get off the main road and look carefully to find it.
Read the complete The Via Appia at the Itri Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia at the Itri Pass is where the day begins. Next is Abruzzo.
Abruzzo is the part of Italy that most Italians forget to brag about, which is probably why it is still so wild. It protects one of the last populations of the Marsican brown bear, a distinct subspecies that survives in the low hundreds at best, as well as wolves, chamois and red deer. You are unlikely to see a bear from the saddle, but the signs on the road warning of animal crossings are not decoration.
Read the complete Abruzzo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abruzzo comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa d'Este.
Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, son of Lucrezia Borgia, had expected to become pope. When that did not happen, he was made governor of Tivoli and consoled himself by turning an old Benedictine convent on the hillside into a villa with a garden that would astonish Europe. Built in the sixteenth century, the Villa d'Este is a hillside of terraces, stairs and fountains, all fed by gravity from the river Aniene: the Hundred Fountains, a long wall of spouting masks and eagles, the Fountain of the Organ, which plays music driven by water, and the Oval Fountain, with its cascade falling into a pool. The villa and its gardens are a World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Villa d'Este write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 213 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa d'Este. Next is back through Abruzzo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abruzzo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abruzzo, late in the day. Next is The Via Appia at the Itri Pass.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia at the Itri Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at The Via Appia at the Itri Pass. That is the ride.
The Via Appia at the Itri Pass → Abruzzo is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Abruzzo → Villa d'Este is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Villa d'Este → back through Abruzzo is 119 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Abruzzo → The Via Appia at the Itri Pass is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.