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 252 km round trip from Stolac - roughly 6 h 08 in the saddle. On the way it passes Vjetrenica Cave, Old City of Dubrovnik, St. Barbara and back through Old City of Dubrovnik. It crosses from Bosnia & Herzegovina into Croatia - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 48 km this is Adriatic Highway, Jadranska Magistrala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the stony hills of eastern Herzegovina, a few kilometres from Stolac, a field of grey limestone blocks lies scattered among oak scrub and dry grass. These are stećci, medieval tombstones carved between roughly the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, and Boljuni has a few hundred of them, many decorated with reliefs: rosettes, crescents, spirals, hunters with spears, dancing figures holding hands, a man raising an oversized hand as if in greeting. Nobody fully agrees on who made them or what all the symbols mean, which makes standing among them oddly moving. Together with other cemeteries across Bosnia and Herzegovina and its neighbours, Boljuni is part of the UNESCO site of Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards, inscribed in 2016.
Read the complete Boljuni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boljuni is where the day begins. Next is Vjetrenica Cave.
The karst country inland from Dubrovnik is a landscape of grey limestone hills, stony fields and long, flat-bottomed valleys called poljes, which flood in winter and dry out in summer. Popovo Polje, on the Bosnian side of the border, is one of the largest, and at its edge, near the village of Zavala, lies Vjetrenica, the most famous cave in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its name means wind cave, from the strong current of air that blows out of its entrance, cool in summer and noticeable from a distance.
Read the complete Vjetrenica Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vjetrenica Cave comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Old City of Dubrovnik. Next is St. Barbara, 34 km on.
Konavle is the long, fertile valley that runs south east of Dubrovnik towards the Montenegrin border, and St. Barbara is a small church at Dubravka, near its upper edge, surrounded by a field of medieval tombstones. These stećci, heavy carved blocks of limestone dating from the late Middle Ages, are part of the cross-border UNESCO listing of stećci cemeteries shared by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. The Dubravka group is one of the most accessible in Croatia, and the setting, with the church, the old stones and the view over the valley, is quietly beautiful.
Read the complete St. Barbara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St. Barbara, 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 sits at 135 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vjetrenica Cave.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vjetrenica Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vjetrenica Cave comes up about 216 km into the recorded legs. Next is Boljuni.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Boljuni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boljuni closes the day.
Boljuni → Vjetrenica Cave is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vjetrenica Cave → Old City of Dubrovnik is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Dubrovnik → St. Barbara is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St. Barbara → back through Old City of Dubrovnik is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Old City of Dubrovnik → back through Vjetrenica Cave is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vjetrenica Cave → Boljuni is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.