Skip to content
CurveScout

CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE

Osum Canyon Loop

Plan this ride

Recorded distance
100 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 00
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis

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.

Open this ride in CurveScout

Why this ride

Tight canyon geometry, elevation changes and strong visual drama. It also links naturally to Osum Canyon and Berat.

Access context

Verify surface, fuel and current construction before publication. Specific flag: gravel; weather.

Seasonal context

May-Oct

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

  1. 1. Berat

    Berat is called the town of a thousand windows, and for once the nickname is just. Ottoman-era white houses climb the hillside above the River Osum in tiers, their tall windows stacked like the faces of a theatre. On the north bank, the Mangalem quarter rises to a fortress, the Kala, whose walls still enclose a living neighbourhood, with families, churches and small cafes inside; on the south bank, Gorica faces it across a stone bridge. UNESCO inscribed the old town with Gjirokastër in 2008, and it is among the most attractive in the Balkans.

    Read the complete Berat write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Berat sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Poliçan.

  2. 2. Poliçan

    Poliçan is an unglamorous town in the hills south-east of Berat, and it is the sort of place that rewards a bike rider more than a sightseer. It grew in the communist period around an industrial plant, a factory complex built for the production of ammunition and other metalwork, and the apartment blocks and wide streets still show that planned past. Today the plant is mostly a shadow of what it was, and the town of roughly ten thousand people lives on small business, remittances and the traffic of people heading for the Osum valley.

    Read the complete Poliçan write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Poliçan comes up 22 km in. Next is Çorovodë.

  3. 3. Çorovodë

    Çorovodë is the main town of the Skrapar region, and it sits at the upper end of one of the most photographed gorges in Albania. The Osum river leaves the mountains here through a canyon cut into pale limestone, with walls up to a hundred metres high and clear green pools below, and in spring, when the river is high, rafting groups come from Berat and Tirana to run it. The town itself is a modest place of apartment blocks and low houses, standing on a plateau above the river, with high ridges to the east and the long chain of the Tomorr massif visible to the north-west on a clear day.

    Read the complete Çorovodë write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    43 km in you reach Çorovodë. Next is Berat.

  4. 4. Berat

    Return visit. Read the place description above.

    Read the complete Berat write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Berat, late in the day.

Recorded source links

Source

More motorcycle rides nearby