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.
443 km from Idrija to Idrija, about 7 h 12 of riding. On the way it passes Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, Keutschacher See and back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses Slovenia, Italy and Austria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 105 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
In 1490, so the story goes, a tub-maker soaking a wooden vessel in a spring found shiny drops of liquid metal at the bottom. It was mercury, and the mine that grew from that discovery at Idrija, in the hills of western Slovenia, became the second largest mercury mine in the world, operating for five centuries. Together with Almadén in Spain, it was inscribed by UNESCO in 2012. The smelting plant, where the ore was roasted to release the mercury vapour, was the heart of the operation, and its buildings and furnaces now tell the story of the industry and its toll on the workers.
Read the complete Idrija - Smelting Plant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Idrija - Smelting Plant is where the day begins. Next is Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, 85 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 87 km into the recorded legs. Next is Keutschacher See.
Keutschacher See is one of the warm little lakes of Carinthia, tucked into the rolling moraine country south of the Wörthersee, where glaciers of the last ice age left a jumble of hills, hollows and water. It is small and shallow, with reeds at the edges and pine and beech woods around it, and in summer it warms to a temperature that makes the Alpine lakes a few valleys away seem Arctic. Locals swim from jetties and lawns, and the nearby village of Keutschach am See is a quiet place of fewer than five hundred people.
Read the complete Keutschacher See write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 221 km into the recorded legs you reach Keutschacher See. Next is back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power, 85 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, late in the day. Next is Idrija - Smelting Plant.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Idrija - Smelting Plant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Idrija - Smelting Plant. That is the ride.
Idrija - Smelting Plant → Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power → Keutschacher See is 134 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Keutschacher See → back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power is 135 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power → Idrija - Smelting Plant is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.