Founders Leg 5 · Friday 2 October 2026
Along the coast past Cicero's tomb, across the Garigliano and up through the Caudine valley into Irpinia.
Breakfast from 07.00. Leave Gaeta along the coast for the first 30 km.
Call the crew for a lift, a mechanical or if you are lost. Everyone is also in the ride WhatsApp group.
A light north easterly to easterly all day, 6 to 12 km/h, with gusts up to about 28 km/h late in the afternoon. You ride east, so expect a gentle headwind or a crosswind from the front left. Dry and warm, 22°C to 28°C.
Forecast from Open-Meteo, taken on 30 September 2026. Check it again on the morning.
The country you ride through
Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, had a villa at Formiae. On 7 December 43 BC Mark Antony's soldiers caught him here as he tried to escape and cut off his head and hands. A tall Roman tomb beside the Via Appia outside Formia has been called the Tomb of Cicero for centuries.
The ruins of the Roman colony of Minturnae, with its theatre, stand beside the Garigliano river. Two big battles were fought here. In 1503 a Spanish army under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba beat the French on the river and won the Kingdom of Naples for Spain. In January 1944 British troops forced a crossing here as part of the Gustav Line battles, with Monte Cassino about 30 km upstream. Minturno War Cemetery holds more than 2,000 Commonwealth graves.
The big wooded hill to the north is Roccamonfina, an extinct volcano famous for chestnuts. Sessa Aurunca has a long Roman bridge, the Ponte degli Aurunci. Further on you pass Sant'Angelo in Formis, a Benedictine church on Monte Tifata with 11th century frescoes that are among the best in southern Italy. Ancient Capua lies on the plain below. It was from a gladiator school in Capua that Spartacus broke out in 73 BC. The Royal Palace of Caserta, the largest royal residence in the world and a stand in for Queen Amidala's palace in Star Wars, is about 7 km south of the route.
Monte Taburno is called the Sleeping Woman of Samnium because its skyline looks like a woman lying on her back. The slopes grow Falanghina and Aglianico del Taburno wines. Sant'Agata de' Goti sits on a cliff of volcanic tufa above two ravines, with houses built right to the edge.
In 321 BC the Samnites trapped a whole Roman army in a narrow pass and made every soldier walk bent under a yoke of spears. Italians still say passare sotto le forche caudine for a humiliating defeat. The pass is traditionally placed in the Valle Caudina, between Arpaia and Montesarchio, which is exactly where you ride this afternoon. Montesarchio's museum holds a painted Greek vase by Assteas showing Europa on the bull, returned by the Getty Museum in 2005.
High on the ridge to your right is the sanctuary of Montevergine, founded in 1124, home of the Black Madonna known locally as Mamma Schiavona. Avellino is the capital of Irpinia and its wine: Fiano di Avellino, Greco di Tufo and Taurasi. The hazelnut's Latin name, Corylus avellana, comes from nearby Avella.
Local heroes
Marcus Tullius Cicero is the name tied most closely to this stretch of coast. Lawyer, consul, philosopher and the finest Latin prose writer, he spent his last days at his villa in Formiae and died there in 43 BC. His letters and speeches have been taught in schools for 2,000 years.
Inland the famous names are saints. Alfonso Maria de' Liguori was bishop of Sant'Agata de' Goti from 1762 to 1775. A lawyer turned priest and later made a Doctor of the Church, he also wrote Tu scendi dalle stelle, the Christmas carol every Italian child knows. Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar and saint who drew millions of pilgrims, was born in 1887 in Pietrelcina, in the same province of Benevento, about 40 km from the lunch stop.