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 258 km round trip from Levoča - roughly 4 h 49 in the saddle. It goes by way of Dobšinská Ice Cave, Component of Koniar plateau, Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov and back through Component of Koniar plateau. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Master Paul of Levoča carved the tallest Gothic wooden altar in the world, and you can stand in front of it in the church of St James in the centre of this walled town in eastern Slovakia. Completed in the early sixteenth century, the altar rises almost nineteen metres, with life-size figures of the Virgin and saints in limewood, painted and gilded, under a forest of pinnacles. It is the masterpiece of a sculptor about whom little is known beyond his work, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of Levoča, Spiš Castle and the associated cultural monuments.
Read the complete Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš is where the day begins. Next is Dobšinská Ice Cave.
Step out of a warm summer day into the Dobšinská Ice Cave and the temperature drops to just below freezing within a few metres. The cave, on the northern edge of the Slovak Paradise in eastern Slovakia, holds a vast mass of ice, tens of thousands of cubic metres, with frozen floors, walls and columns that have built up over thousands of years. It was explored in 1870 by Eugen Ruffinyi, opened to visitors soon after, and became one of the first caves in Europe to be lit by electricity. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst, shared with Hungary.
Read the complete Dobšinská Ice Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dobšinská Ice Cave comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Component of Koniar plateau.
The Koniar plateau is a slab of limestone lifted above the surrounding valleys in southern Slovakia, one of the high karst tablelands that together make up the Slovak Karst. From the road it looks like nothing much: open grassland, scattered trees, a few pastures, steep wooded edges falling to the valleys of the Slaná and its tributaries. The interest is underneath. Rain soaks straight through the limestone, carving caves, shafts and swallow holes, and the whole cave system of the Slovak Karst and Hungary's Aggtelek, just over the border, is protected as a single World Heritage site. Nearby you will find the Ochtinská aragonite cave, filled with white needle-like crystals, the Gombasecká cave with its thin straw stalactites and, further north, the Dobšinská ice cave.
Read the complete Component of Koniar plateau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Component of Koniar plateau. Next is Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov.
The Silica plateau is a high, flat limestone table in the Slovak Karst, a few kilometres north of the Hungarian border, and it forms part of the same cross-border UNESCO site as the Aggtelek caves. The label points to the country around Silica and Jasov, a landscape of dry meadows and beech woods broken by sinkholes, gorges and caves, with small villages tucked in the folds. Jasov, in the valley below, has a large Premonstratensian monastery, founded in the thirteenth century, with a grand Baroque church and a cave beneath the hill that is open to visitors. Nearby is the Ochtiná Aragonite Cave, one of very few caves in the world with spiky, branching aragonite crystals.
Read the complete Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov, about halfway. Next is back through Component of Koniar plateau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Component of Koniar plateau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Component of Koniar plateau sits at 119 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dobšinská Ice Cave.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dobšinská Ice Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dobšinská Ice Cave comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. Next is Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš closes the day.
Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš → Dobšinská Ice Cave is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dobšinská Ice Cave → Component of Koniar plateau is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component of Koniar plateau → Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component neighbouring Silica and Jasov → back through Component of Koniar plateau is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Component of Koniar plateau → back through Dobšinská Ice Cave is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dobšinská Ice Cave → Levoča and the work of Master Paul in Spiš is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.