The Mountain Raid

Tour Plan

Day 1 (11/06)
‘Up to Tivoli’

Arrivals, bike pickup, briefing and ride to Tivoli

We meet in Rome in the morning to collect the motorcycles, sort the paperwork and run the briefing. From there it’s a short hop east on the old Roman Via Tiburtina to Tivoli for the night — about thirty kilometres, the right length for a first afternoon back on a bike in Italy. Tivoli has been a summer retreat for Romans since the late Republic, and the two villas open to the public, Hadrian’s and the Este, are both worth a walk before dinner. We ease into the old town for the evening and let the riding properly begin in the morning.

Day 2 (12/06)
‘Into The Apennines’

Lazio, mountain roads and the road into Abruzzo

Out of Tivoli on the small roads that climb east into the Apennines. We pause for coffee in Rieti — the geographical centre of Italy according to a Roman milestone in the main piazza — and again in Leonessa, a stone mountain town the Spanish reorganised in the sixteenth century and that has not been substantially altered since. From Leonessa the road climbs once more to the high pastures around Amatrice before dropping into the agriturismo where we stay the night. Dinner is at the agriturismo, properly Abruzzese — long table, local cooking, menu of the day.

Day 3 (13/06)
‘The Lake Route’

The high lake, the Massif first climb and a traditional dinner in the country

The first Gran Sasso day. We leave the agriturismo and ride east to an alpine lake at about 1,300 metres that very few people outside the region visit. The road around it is one of the better twisty ones in central Italy and we have it largely to ourselves. From the lake we cross part of the massif on small mountain roads, often within sight of horses and cattle grazing free at altitude. By late afternoon we drop down off the mountain to a valley town at the foot of the southern flank for the night. Dinner is local, the wines on the table are Montepulciano d’Abruzzo as a matter of course, and the conversation invariably turns to the next day.

Day 4 (14/06)
‘On The High Plateau’

Twisty climb, vast sceneries, and a lunch to remember

The day the tour was built around. We climb back up to the massif in the morning — out of forest and onto open grassland at altitude, with the Gran Sasso peaks running along the northern edge of the road. Twenty-seven kilometres of empty road across the high grassland, peaks on one side, open sky on the other. Lunch is up there: arrosticini grilled over open embers in front of the mountain itself, a local ritual we slot ourselves into rather than perform. From the western end of the plateau we descend through the Sirente-Velino regional park on the small roads of the southern slope, and finish the day at a mountain town on another high plateau, at about 1,300 metres, with proper restaurants on the central piazza.

Day 5 (15/06)
‘The Great Way Home’

More mountains, monasteries, and a final celebration

Out of the mountains on the western roads of the Sirente-Velino, dropping briefly into a wide plain before climbing again into the Simbruini range. We stop for lunch at a medieval town along the way, then ride through the Benedictine country around Subiaco, where a coffee stop near the old monasteries closes the cultural arc of the trip, before descending the final hairpins into the eastern outskirts of Rome. Motorcycles back by aperitivo hour. We celebrate together over dinner in Rome.

Day 6 (16/06)
‘Departure Day’

Tour ends, departures, or a few more days in Rome