Torre Annunziata: Villa A and Marechiaro

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 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. 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. 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 back through Costiera Amalfitana.

4. 4. 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, late in the day. Next is Torre Annunziata: Villa A.

5. 5. 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

   Back at Torre Annunziata: Villa A. That is the ride.