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.
427 km from Venosa to Venosa, about 7 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Castel del Monte, The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan, The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C and back through Castel del Monte. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The Via Appia, the queen of roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in Basilicata it crossed the upland of the upper Bradano valley, a high, open country of wheat fields and rolling hills, near the towns of Venosa and Palazzo San Gervasio. In 2024 the Via Appia was listed as a World Heritage Site along its whole length, and here, in the empty farmland, the line of the road can be traced in field boundaries and tracks, with occasional fragments of paving and the ruins of way stations.
Read the complete The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley is where the day begins. Next is Castel del Monte.
You see it long before you reach it: a pale stone crown sitting alone on a hilltop above the Murge plateau, visible for miles across the olive groves and wheat fields of northern Puglia. Castel del Monte was built in the 1240s for Emperor Frederick II, the brilliant and restless Hohenstaufen ruler whom contemporaries called the wonder of the world. It is perfectly octagonal, with eight octagonal towers at the corners and an octagonal courtyard in the middle, and nobody really knows what it was for. It has no moat, no stables, no obvious defensive purpose, which has fed centuries of theories about astronomy, geometry and mysticism. UNESCO listed it in 1996, and Italians carry it in their pockets: it is on the back of the one-cent euro coin.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castel del Monte comes up about 47 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan.
In AD 109, the emperor Trajan opened a new road from Benevento to Brindisi, shorter and easier than the old Via Appia, and it crossed the plain of northern Puglia, past the ancient city of Canusium, today's Canosa di Puglia. Near Canosa, the road crossed the Ofanto river on a bridge whose Roman foundations still support a later structure. The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofanto crossing are part of the UNESCO listing of Via Appia, Regina Viarum, inscribed in 2024, and the plain around them is open, flat and fertile, a landscape of olive groves, vineyards and fields of wheat and artichokes.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan. Next is Castel del Monte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castel del Monte, about halfway. Next is The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C.
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 sits at 191 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castel del Monte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castel del Monte comes up about 287 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 331 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan. Next is back through Castel del Monte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castel del Monte, late in the day. Next is The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 427 km.
The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley → Castel del Monte is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castel del Monte → The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan → Castel del Monte is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castel del Monte → The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C → back through Castel del Monte is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Castel del Monte → back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan → back through Castel del Monte is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castel del Monte → The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.