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 Poreč it runs 355 km to Poreč; allow about 4 h 49 of riding. The stops in between: Škocjan Caves, Kolišča na Igu and back through Škocjan Caves. It crosses from Croatia into Slovenia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 Kolišča na Igu.
The oldest wheel in the world was found in a peat bog in Slovenia, and the bog is the Ljubljana Marshes. Archaeologists working here in 2002 pulled out a wooden wheel with its axle, dating from around 3100 BC, which is now in the city museum in Ljubljana. The find was made close to the village of Ig, a few kilometres south of the capital, where for centuries people built houses on stilts above the wet ground. The pile dwellings at Ig, called Kolišča in Slovenian, are one of the settlements that UNESCO lists among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Kolišča na Igu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 175 km into the recorded legs you reach Kolišča na Igu. 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 → Kolišča na Igu is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kolišča na Igu → back through Škocjan Caves is 88 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.