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.
A 436 km round trip from Kotor - roughly 9 h 35 in the saddle. On the way it passes Lokrum Island, Grebnice, Old City of Dubrovnik and back through Old City of Dubrovnik. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Montenegro into Croatia - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 1 km this is Adriatic Highway, Jadranska Magistrala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Bay of Kotor looks like a fjord but is really a drowned river canyon, a series of linked basins surrounded by limestone mountains that rise nearly straight from the water. Kotor itself sits at the innermost end, a walled town tucked under a steep cliff, with a fortress that climbs the slope behind it in a zigzag line of walls. It was a Venetian possession for centuries, and its narrow lanes, stone churches and small squares have kept their medieval layout. The Cathedral of St Tryphon, from the twelfth century, is the main landmark, and cats are everywhere, as the town's unofficial mascots.
Read the complete Kotor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kotor is where the day begins. Next is Lokrum Island.
From the walls of Dubrovnik you look straight across a short stretch of sea to a low, dark green island covered in pines and holm oaks. That is Lokrum, and it is the closest thing the city has to a back garden. No cars or motorbikes are allowed on it, and nobody may stay overnight. You leave the bike on the mainland, catch one of the regular boats from the old harbour, and in about a quarter of an hour you step onto a quay with peacocks strutting about as if they owned the place, which they more or less do.
Read the complete Lokrum Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lokrum Island comes up 48 km in. Next is Grebnice.
Grebnice, a name that simply means something like grave-stones, is a field of stećci near Bileća in eastern Herzegovina. These are the massive carved tombstones of medieval Bosnia and its neighbours, cut from local limestone between roughly the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, shaped like chests, slabs or little houses with gabled roofs, and sometimes covered with spirals, rosettes, swords, shields and dancing figures. UNESCO listed a selection of the most important sites together in 2016, and the necropolis here is one of the eastern Herzegovinian groups. Standing among them on a still afternoon, with the grass grown up around the stones, is a strangely moving experience.
Read the complete Grebnice write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
95 km in you reach Grebnice. Next is Old City of Dubrovnik.
Dubrovnik is the place where the Dalmatian coast reaches its theatrical climax: a walled city of pale limestone thrust out into a sea that refuses to be any colour but deep blue. The walls run for nearly two kilometres around the old town, with towers, bastions and the great Minčeta fortress on the landward side, and inside them the marble-paved Stradun runs straight from the Pile Gate to the old port. For centuries this was the Republic of Ragusa, a small, astute maritime state that survived between Venice and the Ottoman Empire through trade, diplomacy and a famously effective tribute system, until Napoleon ended its independence in the early nineteenth century.
Read the complete Old City of Dubrovnik write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Dubrovnik, about halfway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old City of Dubrovnik write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Dubrovnik sits at 191 km, about halfway. Next is back through Old City of Dubrovnik.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old City of Dubrovnik write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Old City of Dubrovnik comes up 238 km in. Next is back through Grebnice.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grebnice write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
286 km in you reach back through Grebnice. Next is back through Lokrum Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lokrum Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lokrum Island, late in the day. Next is Kotor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kotor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 436 km.
Kotor → Lokrum Island is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Lokrum Island → Grebnice is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grebnice → Old City of Dubrovnik is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Old City of Dubrovnik → back through Grebnice is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grebnice → back through Lokrum Island is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lokrum Island → Kotor is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.