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.
352 km from Ercolano to Ercolano, about 5 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: 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.
The Villa of the Papyri is mostly still buried. It was a huge seaside villa at Herculaneum, on the slope below Vesuvius, and when the eruption of 79 AD sent a mud and ash flow down on the town, the villa was covered by twenty metres of hard volcanic rock. In the 1750s, the Bourbon engineers who were digging in the area tunnelled down and found marble statues, bronzes of rare quality and a library of around 1,800 papyrus scrolls, charred into black lumps by the heat. The scrolls, many of them works by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, have been read in recent years using X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence. The villa may have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Piso, though this is a guess. The villa in Malibu that houses the Getty Museum is a copy of it.
Read the complete Villa dei Papiri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa dei Papiri 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 Villa dei Papiri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa dei Papiri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Villa dei Papiri. That is the ride.
Villa dei Papiri → 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 → Villa dei Papiri is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.