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 352 km round trip from Ercolano - roughly 5 h 51 in the saddle. On the way it passes Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan, The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia and back through Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Herculaneum is the smaller, better-preserved sister of Pompeii, and the theatre is one of its hidden treasures. When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, Herculaneum was buried not by falling ash, as Pompeii was, but by a series of pyroclastic surges, which killed the people who had fled to the boathouses on the beach and then entombed the town under about twenty metres of hardened volcanic material. The deep burial protected wooden beams, furniture, food and even the upper floors of houses. The theatre was found in the early eighteenth century by workers digging a well, and for years explorers tunnelled in the dark to reach it, taking away statues for the Bourbon king of Naples.
Read the complete Theatre of Herculaneum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Theatre of Herculaneum is where the day begins. Next is Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan.
Benevento was a Samnite town called Maleventum when the Romans arrived, and they reportedly changed its name to Beneventum, good event instead of bad event, after defeating King Pyrrhus nearby in 275 BC. The city became an important stop on the Via Appia, and later the starting point of the Via Traiana, a shorter route to Brindisi built by the Emperor Trajan. In 114 AD, the city erected a triumphal arch in his honour where the new road began, and it is one of the best preserved Roman arches anywhere, covered with reliefs celebrating Trajan's achievements, from his conquests to his care for the poor. It stands today at the edge of the old town, its marble a soft cream colour, its carvings still sharp.
Read the complete Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan comes up 78 km in. Next is The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia.
There is nothing here that announces itself. What you have is a long, almost featureless landscape of grain, stubble and the odd masseria, and under it the line of a Roman road. The Via Traiana was commissioned by the emperor Trajan around 109 AD as a faster, drier alternative to the old Appia between Benevento and Brindisi, and the stretch from Aecae to Herdonia is one of the places where you can follow its logic: flat, direct, and aimed at the next town.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
155 km in you reach The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia. Next is back through Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan, late in the day. Next is Theatre of Herculaneum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Theatre of Herculaneum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Theatre of Herculaneum. That is the ride.
Theatre of Herculaneum → Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan → The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Appia Traiana from Aecae to Herdonia → back through Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan → Theatre of Herculaneum is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.