CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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 284 km round trip from Sofia - roughly 3 h in the saddle. The stops in between: \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex, \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, Rila Monastery and Rila Monastery Complex. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,700 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Sofia sits under a mountain, and that is the first thing to understand about it. Vitosha rises right behind the southern suburbs, a broad, dome-shaped massif topping out at Cherni Vrah, around 2,290 metres, and on a clear morning the snow is visible from the boulevards. People ski there in winter and hike in summer, and the city's residents treat it like a back garden. The capital of Bulgaria is a plain, solid place of about one and a quarter million, with Soviet-era blocks, Ottoman remnants and an unexpected number of small parks.
Read the complete Sofia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sofia is where the day begins. Next is \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex, 22 km on.
Ivan of Rila was a hermit who, in the tenth century, withdrew into the forests of the Rila mountains to live in a cave and a hollow tree, and the monastery that grew up around his grave became the spiritual heart of Bulgaria. Rila Monastery sits in a valley at about 1,150 metres, surrounded by steep forested slopes, and the Rilska river runs beside it. The buildings you see today date mostly from the nineteenth century, after a great fire in 1833 destroyed the older ones, but within the courtyard stands a medieval tower, Hrelyo's Tower, from 1335, and the main church is covered in vivid murals.
Read the complete \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
\Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex comes up about 131 km into the recorded legs. Next is \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, 22 km on.
Above Rila Monastery, in the folds of the Rila Mountains, a path leads to the hermit's cave where it all began. The monastery was founded in the tenth century by Saint Ivan of Rila, a monk who left the world to live as a recluse in these forests, and he gathered followers who built a community.
Read the complete \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex. Next is Rila Monastery.
The road to Rila Monastery climbs a long valley through forests of beech and spruce, and when the monastery appears the effect is theatrical. Its walls enclose a courtyard of striped arcades in black, white and red, with a church in the middle covered in frescoes, and behind it the green flanks of the Rila mountains rise towards peaks of more than two and a half thousand metres. It is the largest and most important monastery in Bulgaria, and UNESCO listed it in 1983.
Read the complete Rila Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rila Monastery, about halfway. Next is Rila Monastery Complex.
Rila Monastery sits at around eleven hundred metres in a forested valley of the Rila mountains, the highest range in the Balkans, where Musala at nearly three thousand metres stands above all the peaks of south-eastern Europe. The monastery lies at the end of a long road that follows the Rilska river upstream through beech and spruce, and the approach feels like going back in time. Mist hangs in the trees, the air smells of resin, and the river noise grows louder as you climb.
Read the complete Rila Monastery Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rila Monastery Complex sits at 87 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rila Monastery.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rila Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rila Monastery comes up about 143 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex, 22 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 146 km into the recorded legs you reach back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex. Next is back through \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex, 21 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex, late in the day. Next is Sofia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sofia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 284 km.
Sofia → \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex is 131 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
\St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex → Rila Monastery is 2 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rila Monastery → back through \St. Luke Hermitage\ Complex is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through \Grave of St. Ivan Rilski\ Complex → Sofia is 139 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.