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.
436 km from Keutschach am See to Keutschach am See, about 6 h 17 of riding. On the way it passes Church of St. Francis of Assisi, Idrija - Smelting Plant, Roman Walls in Mirje and back through Idrija - Smelting Plant. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Austria into Slovenia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 85 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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.
Keutschacher See is where the day begins. Next is Church of St. Francis of Assisi, 61 km on.
Ljubljana's Church of Saint Francis of Assisi stands in the Šiška district, north-west of the old centre, and it is one of the buildings by Jože Plečnik that UNESCO listed in 2021. Plečnik was born in Ljubljana in 1872, trained in Vienna under Otto Wagner, and worked in Prague, where he renovated the castle for the first Czechoslovak president, before returning to his home city in 1921. He spent the next decades remaking Ljubljana in his own style, with bridges, markets, a library and gardens, mixing classical forms with a personal, almost playful imagination. The church in Šiška, built in the late 1920s, is among his strangest and most original buildings.
Read the complete Church of St. Francis of Assisi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of St. Francis of Assisi comes up about 99 km into the recorded legs. Next is Idrija - Smelting Plant.
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.
about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Idrija - Smelting Plant. 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, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Idrija - Smelting Plant sits at 245 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church of St. Francis of Assisi, 62 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of St. Francis of Assisi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of St. Francis of Assisi comes up about 337 km into the recorded legs. Next is Keutschacher See.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Keutschacher See write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Keutschacher See closes the day.
Keutschacher See → Church of St. Francis of Assisi is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of St. Francis of Assisi → Idrija - Smelting Plant is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → back through Idrija - Smelting Plant is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Idrija - Smelting Plant → back through Church of St. Francis of Assisi is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of St. Francis of Assisi → Keutschacher See is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.