Why this ride
From Torre Annunziata it runs 321 km to Torre Annunziata; allow about 5 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Costiera Amalfitana, Marechiaro, Ancient Capua and back through Marechiaro. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Torre Annunziata: Villa A and Ancient Capua
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 321 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 5 h 54
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Amalfi Coast Road
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 41 km this is Amalfi Coast Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 41 km
- Named road
- Amalfi Coast Road
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Torre Annunziata: Villa A
In the busy, scruffy town of Torre Annunziata, on the coast south of Naples, a high wall hides one of the most extraordinary Roman villas ever found. Villa A at Oplontis, often called the Villa of Poppaea because it is thought to have belonged to the family of Nero's second wife, was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and rediscovered in the eighteenth century, with large-scale excavations in the twentieth. It is part of the UNESCO site that includes Pompeii and Herculaneum, but sees a fraction of their visitors, which is one of its great pleasures.
Read the complete Torre Annunziata: Villa A write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Torre Annunziata: Villa A is where the day begins. Next is Costiera Amalfitana.
2. Costiera Amalfitana
The Amalfi coast road is the reason many riders first dreamed of Italy, and it lives up to the legend and then some, with a few catches. The SS163 Amalfitana, carved into the cliffs above the sea in the nineteenth century, winds along the southern side of the Sorrento peninsula from Positano to Vietri sul Mare, with hundreds of bends, sheer drops, tunnels, bridges and villages clinging to the rocks. Amalfi itself, a small town of about five thousand people at the mouth of a ravine, was once a powerful maritime republic that rivalled Venice and Genoa in the Middle Ages, and its cathedral, with its striped facade and Arab-Norman cloister, is a reminder of that glory.
Read the complete Costiera Amalfitana write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Costiera Amalfitana comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Marechiaro.
3. Marechiaro
There is a song about Marechiaro, and for once the song is not exaggerating. The little fishing hamlet on the Posillipo headland, at the western edge of the Bay of Naples, inspired a poem by Salvatore Di Giacomo in the 1880s about a window and a flower, and Francesco Paolo Tosti set it to music, so that "Marechiare" has been sung in Neapolitan kitchens and concert halls ever since. Locals will point out the so-called Fenestella, a small window on a wall above the sea, as the very one. Whether the poet had it in mind or not is a matter for a pleasant argument over a plate of fried fish.
Read the complete Marechiaro write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 114 km into the recorded legs you reach Marechiaro. Next is Ancient Capua.
4. Ancient Capua
Santa Maria Capua Vetere does not look like much as you ride in, a busy Campanian town of tangled traffic and apartment blocks, but under and around it lies ancient Capua, once one of the richest cities in Italy. The Via Appia passed straight through, and its great amphitheatre, second in size only to the Colosseum, still dominates the edge of town. This was where the gladiator schools trained their fighters, and it was from a school in Capua that Spartacus broke out in 73 BC with a band of fellow slaves, beginning the revolt that shook Rome for two years. The amphitheatre and a small gladiator museum nearby are the obvious stops, and the Mithraeum under the town, with its painted scene of the god slaying a bull, is one of the best preserved in Italy.
Read the complete Ancient Capua write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ancient Capua, about halfway. Next is back through Marechiaro.
5. back through Marechiaro
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Marechiaro write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Marechiaro sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Costiera Amalfitana.
6. back through Costiera Amalfitana
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Costiera Amalfitana write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Costiera Amalfitana comes up about 281 km into the recorded legs. Next is Torre Annunziata: Villa A.
7. Torre Annunziata: Villa A
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Torre Annunziata: Villa A write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Torre Annunziata: Villa A closes the day.
Leg by leg
Torre Annunziata: Villa A to Costiera Amalfitana
Torre Annunziata: Villa A → Costiera Amalfitana is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Costiera Amalfitana to Marechiaro
Costiera Amalfitana → Marechiaro is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marechiaro to Ancient Capua
Marechiaro → Ancient Capua is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancient Capua to back through Marechiaro
Ancient Capua → back through Marechiaro is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Marechiaro to back through Costiera Amalfitana
back through Marechiaro → back through Costiera Amalfitana is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Costiera Amalfitana to Torre Annunziata: Villa A
back through Costiera Amalfitana → Torre Annunziata: Villa A is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.