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 337 km round trip from Orange - roughly 5 h 12 in the saddle. The stops in between: The Maison Carrée of Nîmes, The Causses and the Cévennes and back through The Maison Carrée of Nîmes. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
The Théâtre antique d'Orange is one of the best-preserved Roman theatres anywhere, and the thing that surprises people is the wall. The stage wall at the back, known as the scaenae frons, still stands to its full height of around thirty-six metres, a huge, sun-bleached cliff of stone that Louis XIV is supposed to have called the finest wall in his kingdom. Built in the early first century AD when Orange was the Roman colony of Arausio, the theatre could seat several thousand, and the acoustics are so good that it hosts the Chorégies d'Orange opera festival every summer, as it has for generations.
Read the complete Théâtre antique write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Théâtre antique is where the day begins. Next is The Maison Carrée of Nîmes.
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 comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Causses and the Cévennes.
Most visitors to the Cévennes come for the gorges, but the real character of this country lies on top of them. The causses are high limestone plateaus, treeless and wind-scoured, where sheep have grazed for millennia and the horizon runs on for fifty kilometres. Cut deep into them are the gorges of the Tarn and the Jonte, with their cliffs and caves, and to the east the Cévennes mountains rise in ridges of schist and chestnut forest. The whole area is listed by UNESCO as a cultural landscape of Mediterranean agriculture and pastoralism, and much of it falls within the Cévennes National Park, set up in 1970.
Read the complete The Causses and the Cévennes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach The Causses and the Cévennes. Next is back through 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 through The Maison Carrée of Nîmes, late in the day. Next is Théâtre antique.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Théâtre antique write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Théâtre antique. That is the ride.
Théâtre antique → The Maison Carrée of Nîmes is 55 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Maison Carrée of Nîmes → The Causses and the Cévennes is 113 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Causses and the Cévennes → back through The Maison Carrée of Nîmes is 113 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Maison Carrée of Nîmes → Théâtre antique is 55 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.