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.
From Palmanova it runs 388 km to Palmanova; allow about 7 h 31 of riding. It goes by way of Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier, Škocjan Caves and back through Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Slovenia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 52 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
From the air Palmanova is a perfect nine-pointed star, and even from the saddle you can feel the geometry. The roads come in through monumental gates, cross the moats and ramparts, and run dead straight to a vast hexagonal piazza in the middle, where the whole town seems to stop and look at itself. It is one of the purest examples of an ideal Renaissance city ever built, and it sits on the flat Friulian plain between Udine and the Adriatic like a diagram that somebody forgot to take back.
Read the complete City Fortress of Palmanova write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City Fortress of Palmanova is where the day begins. Next is Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, 45 km on.
Cividale del Friuli was founded as Forum Iulii, a market town established by Julius Caesar, and it gave its name to the whole region of Friuli. In 568, when the Lombards crossed the Alps and invaded Italy, Cividale was the first city they took, and it became the seat of their first duchy. The Lombards ruled much of Italy for two centuries, and Cividale preserves some of the finest traces of their culture. The Tempietto Longobardo, a small eighth-century chapel overlooking the river, holds a row of stucco female saints of extraordinary grace, among the most beautiful works of art of the early Middle Ages. It is the centrepiece of the UNESCO listing of the Longobards in Italy, Places of the Power, along with sites from Brescia to Benevento. The National Archaeological Museum displays jewellery, weapons and grave goods from Lombard tombs.
Read the complete Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier.
The water barriers of the Idrijca are among the strangest industrial monuments in Europe: massive stone and timber dams built across a narrow mountain river not to store water for drinking or power, but to float logs. Locals call them klavže, and the biggest have been nicknamed the Slovenian pyramids for their huge, carefully cut blocks. They lie in the deep, wooded gorge below the Vojsko plateau, a short ride from the town of Idrija.
Read the complete Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 102 km into the recorded legs you reach Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier. Next is Škocjan Caves.
Underneath the sleepy stone villages of the Slovenian Karst, a river called the Reka plunges into the earth and carves one of the largest underground canyons known anywhere. The Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO site since 1986, are the reason the word karst became the scientific name for this kind of limestone landscape everywhere in the world. Inside, a narrow footbridge spans the Reka gorge far above the roaring water, the chamber walls disappear into darkness, and the scale is so huge that your mind struggles to accept it is all underground.
Read the complete Škocjan Caves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Škocjan Caves, about halfway. Next is back through Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, 44 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power comes up about 358 km into the recorded legs. Next is City Fortress of Palmanova.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City Fortress of Palmanova write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City Fortress of Palmanova closes the day.
City Fortress of Palmanova → Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power → Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier → Škocjan Caves is 92 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Škocjan Caves → back through Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vojsko - Idrijca Water Barrier → back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power → City Fortress of Palmanova is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.