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 Idrija it runs 490 km to Idrija; allow about 9 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Roman Walls in Mirje, Snežnik-Ždrocle, Krokar and back through Snežnik-Ždrocle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 Roman Walls in Mirje.
In the middle of Ljubljana, on Mirje street, a long stretch of reconstructed wall recalls the Roman town of Emona. The Romans founded Emona in the early first century AD, on a grid of streets beside the Ljubljanica river, as a frontier outpost and trading town on the road between Italy and the Danube. It had walls, gates, forums, baths and a population of several thousand. Later, the town was sacked by Huns and other invaders, and its stones were reused for centuries, so that very little survived above ground.
Read the complete Roman Walls in Mirje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman Walls in Mirje comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Snežnik-Ždrocle.
Ždrocle is a fragment of primeval beech forest on the slopes of Snežnik, the big karst mountain in the far south of Slovenia, close to the Croatian border, and it is one of the components of the great European UNESCO listing of ancient and primeval beech forests. That listing stretches from the Carpathians to Spain, but here you are in its Dinaric heart, where beech, fir and maple grow on a chaotic surface of limestone sinkholes, sharp ridges and hollows full of moss. Snežnik itself rises to just under eighteen hundred metres and holds its snow late, which is how it got its name.
Read the complete Snežnik-Ždrocle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Snežnik-Ždrocle. Next is Krokar.
Krokar is one of the last true virgin forests in Europe, a reserve of beech and fir on a steep slope above the Kolpa river in southern Slovenia, where humans have never logged or managed the woods. Trees grow, fall and rot as they have done since the end of the Ice Age, and the result is an extraordinary tangle of giant trunks, dead wood and fresh saplings, home to fungi, beetles and birds that need old, undisturbed forest. Since 2017, Krokar has been part of the UNESCO site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. The reserve itself is strictly protected and not open to visitors; you can walk along its edge, but the heart of it is left alone, which is precisely the point.
Read the complete Krokar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Krokar, about halfway. Next is back through Snežnik-Ždrocle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Snežnik-Ždrocle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Snežnik-Ždrocle sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roman Walls in Mirje.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman Walls in Mirje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Roman Walls in Mirje comes up about 431 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Idrija - Smelting Plant closes the day.
Idrija - Smelting Plant → Roman Walls in Mirje is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roman Walls in Mirje → Snežnik-Ždrocle is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Snežnik-Ždrocle → Krokar is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Krokar → back through Snežnik-Ždrocle is 76 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Snežnik-Ždrocle → back through Roman Walls in Mirje is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Roman Walls in Mirje → Idrija - Smelting Plant is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.