CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 189 km round trip from Orange - roughly 3 h 10 in the saddle. The stops in between: Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Pont du Gard, The Maison Carrée of Nîmes and back through Pont du Gard. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Théâtre antique → Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace for 27 km.
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 Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace.
For most of the fourteenth century, the popes lived in Avignon rather than Rome. In 1309, Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, settled here to escape the turmoil of Italian politics, and his successors built a vast palace, the Palais des Papes, the largest Gothic palace in Europe, with massive walls, towers and halls, more fortress than residence. Seven popes reigned here until 1377, when the papacy returned to Rome, and then rival popes continued to rule from Avignon during the Great Schism. The palace, the cathedral, the ramparts and the famous bridge, the Pont Saint-Bénézet, were listed by UNESCO in 1995.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace comes up 27 km in. Next is Pont du Gard.
Built without mortar, three tiers of arches carry a water channel across the gorge of the Gardon nearly fifty metres above the river, and the stones still fit together as if they had been placed last week. The Pont du Gard was one section of an aqueduct some fifty kilometres long that brought spring water from near Uzès to Roman Nîmes in the first century, with a total drop of only a few metres over the whole distance. It is a masterpiece of surveying as much as building, and it has stood through floods that have destroyed far younger bridges.
Read the complete Pont du Gard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
55 km in you reach Pont du Gard. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Pont du Gard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pont du Gard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pont du Gard sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace comes up 137 km in. 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.
Théâtre antique closes the day.
Théâtre antique → Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace → Pont du Gard is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pont du Gard → The Maison Carrée of Nîmes is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Maison Carrée of Nîmes → back through Pont du Gard is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pont du Gard → back through Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace → Théâtre antique is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.