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 370 km round trip from Qobustan - roughly 5 h 45 in the saddle. The stops in between: Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's, Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and and back through Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Some places keep their secrets in plain view. Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is a low plateau of boulders and caves southwest of Baku, where over six thousand petroglyphs have been recorded, some perhaps forty thousand years old if you accept the broadest estimates, and others dating from the Middle Ages. The earliest pictures show hunters and large animals, and the later ones include boats with rows of oars, dancing figures and carts. Archaeologists believe the sea was close to the rocks in prehistoric times, and the boats fit that picture.
Read the complete Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's.
Baku is windy by name and by nature, and the old walled city on the Caspian shore has been catching the wind for about a thousand years. Inside the walls, known locally as Icherisheher, a maze of narrow stone lanes winds between mosques, caravanserais and houses with carved balconies. The Maiden Tower, a stout round tower of mysterious age and purpose, rises near the sea, and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, built in the fifteenth century as the residence of the rulers of Shirvan, sits on the hill above. UNESCO listed the walled city and the palace together in 2000.
Read the complete Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and.
The Greater Caucasus in Azerbaijan is a wall of limestone and shale that rises abruptly from the Caspian lowlands, and at its heart lives one of the oldest and most isolated communities in the country. The Khinalig people speak a language found nowhere else, farm and herd at over two thousand metres, and live in stone houses with flat roofs that sit so close together that you can walk from one yard to the next across the rooftops. The village is among the highest permanently inhabited places in Europe, and in winter the snow can cut it off for days.
Read the complete Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 180 km into the recorded legs you reach Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and. Next is back through Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's, late in the day. Next is Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape. That is the ride.
Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape → Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's → Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cultural Landscape of Khinalig People and → back through Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's is 128 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's → Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.