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 329 km round trip from Poreč - roughly 4 h 56 in the saddle. It goes by way of Škocjan Caves, Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba and back through Škocjan Caves. It crosses Croatia, Slovenia and Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 92 km this is Croatia Istrian Hill Town Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Poreč sits on a little limestone peninsula on the western coast of Istria, and the old town still follows the grid the Romans laid down, with the Decumanus running straight down the middle. The Euphrasian Basilica is tucked a few lanes from the main street, behind a quiet atrium, and it is easy to walk past if you are looking for something grand from the outside. Inside is the reason it earned its UNESCO listing: a sixth-century church, built under Bishop Euphrasius, that kept its Byzantine mosaics through a millennium and a half of earthquakes, Venetian rule and tourism.
Read the complete Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 92 km into the recorded legs. Next is Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba.
Aquileia today is a village of fewer than three thousand people in the flat farmland of Friuli, near the head of the Adriatic, but two thousand years ago it was one of the largest and richest cities of the Roman Empire. Founded as a Latin colony in 181 BC to guard the northeastern approaches to Italy, it grew into a great trading port, connected to the sea by a river and a canal, through which amber, wine, oil and glass moved between the Mediterranean and the lands beyond the Alps. Attila sacked it in 452, and many of its people fled to the lagoons, where their descendants helped found Venice and Grado.
Read the complete Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 165 km into the recorded legs you reach Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba. Next is back through Škocjan Caves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Škocjan Caves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Škocjan Caves, late in the day. Next is Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili. That is the ride.
Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili → Škocjan Caves is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Škocjan Caves → Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba → back through Škocjan Caves is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Škocjan Caves → Episcopal Complex of the Euphrasian Basili is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.