The Adriatic Cycle Route runs from Trieste to Santa Maria di Leuca across seven regions: 1,700 kilometres, roughly three weeks. Puglia is the last stretch and the longest — 558 to 621 kilometres depending on which way you go — and it is split into four official sections, each with its code. Two of them, CA60 and CA61, share the same start and the same finish: the same leg ridden two ways, and the gap between them is 63 kilometres and 1,469 metres of climbing. On this page: the four sections with real numbers, the Gargano choice, and how to get back.
The one Puglia cycle route already mapped end to end
Of all the long routes crossing Puglia, the Adriatic Cycle Route is the only one you can download today from start to finish. It is not a traffic-free path — almost nothing here is — but it is a continuous, sectioned, published route with a code for each part. In the Italian national cycle network it is Bicitalia 6, and it is one of the sixteen routes in Puglia’s 2020 regional plan.
It starts in Trieste, runs the length of the Adriatic and ends at the monumental waterfall at Santa Maria di Leuca — the same point where the Apulian Aqueduct Cycle Route finishes. Puglia’s two long-distance spines, one along the sea and one inland, close at the same spot.
The four Apulian sections
Each section has a code and a name. These are the figures measured on the official tracks, and they are worth reading in sequence because they describe four different Puglias.
- CA60 — Via del Tavoliere, Campomarino (Molise) to Manfredonia: 117.1 km, +647 m, topping out at 222 metres. Cuts straight across the Tavoliere plain.
- CA61 — Via del Gargano, same start and same finish: 179.8 km, +2,116 m, reaching 694 metres. Goes round the promontory.
- CA70 — Via delle Saline, Manfredonia to Monopoli: 193.4 km, +263 m, and it never rises above 38 metres. The flattest section of the whole route, from the salt pans of Margherita di Savoia to the trulli coast.
- CA80 — Via del Salento, Monopoli to Santa Maria di Leuca: 248.0 km, +618 m. The longest of the four, and the one that closes it all.
The Gargano choice, in two drawings
This is the decision every cycle tourist makes on entering Puglia, and it is usually described with adjectives — «more scenic», «harder». The two official tracks let us put numbers on it, because they start in the same village and end in the same village: Campomarino and Manfredonia.
CA60, the Via del Tavoliere, is the short way:
A hundred and seventeen kilometres of plain, with some rolling ground inland. One day on the bike.
CA61, the Via del Gargano, is the same leg taken round the promontory:
A hundred and seventy-nine kilometres and the climb onto the promontory, up to 694 metres. Two days, and two real ones.
Sixty-three kilometres and one thousand four hundred and sixty-nine metres of climbing more, to get from the same place to the same place. Put that way, the choice stops being a matter of taste and becomes a practical question: do you have two days instead of one, and do you have the legs?
If you do, the Gargano holds the finest part of the whole route: the coastal lakes of Lesina and Varano, the ferry detour to the Tremiti Islands, the Foresta Umbra and Monte Sant’Angelo looking down on the gulf. The detail of the promontory’s own routes is on the cycling in the Gargano page.
The other two sections, which are each other’s opposite
After Manfredonia the route stops asking anything of your legs, and the CA70 profile says it better than any sentence: a hundred and ninety-three kilometres that never rise above thirty-eight metres.
The flattest section of the whole route, from the salt pans of Margherita di Savoia to the trulli coast. Two hundred and sixty-three metres of climbing over a hundred and ninety-three kilometres.
The last one, CA80, is the longest of the four and changes again: it does not turn back into mountains, but it stops being plain.
Two hundred and forty-eight kilometres to Santa Maria di Leuca. The rolling ground in the second half is the high coast of the Salento, where the rock lifts above the sea.
Why you will read different numbers
Figures for this route do not agree, and it is better to know where each comes from than to pick one at random. You will see 1,300 km for the whole thing and «about 350» for Puglia: those are shorter measurements, starting at Manfredonia and following a more direct line. The site that maintains the route declares 1,700 km across seven regions, and the tracks it publishes give the Apulian figures on this page.
Nobody is wrong: the official route is not the shortest line between two points, and does not try to be — it goes where it is worth going. We use the tracks here, because those are what you download and follow.
One thing the numbers do not tell you, and it matters. The name of the CA61 track carries a warning from whoever drew it: «13 km of trunk road». Over nearly a hundred and eighty kilometres that is not much, but it is thirteen kilometres of main road, with real traffic and lorries. If you are riding with children, or you are not comfortable in traffic, factor that in and look at CA60 instead.
Getting there, and getting back
The advantage of a route ending at Leuca is that you can take it in pieces. The Apulian coast is served by rail for almost its whole length, and on regional trains marked with the bicycle pictogram bikes travel free: present yourself to the on-board staff before boarding and the guard issues a zero-cost supplement.
So there is no need to ride back or arrange a pick-up: go as far as you want and return by train. It is what makes the Apulian stretch of the Adriatic route easier to take on than its equivalent further north. The full picture is on the cycling in Puglia page.
