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 520 km round trip from Novi Travnik - roughly 10 h 33 in the saddle. It goes by way of Dolovi in the village of Umoljani, Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar and back through Dolovi in the village of Umoljani. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 115 km this is Bosnia Mostar to Sarajevo Mountain Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Central Bosnia is a country of green hills folded one behind another, and Maculje sits in the middle of it, a few kilometres from Novi Travnik in the Lašva valley. If you have not heard of it, you are in good company, because what draws people here is quiet and very old. Maculje is a necropolis of stećci, the massive carved limestone tombstones that medieval Bosnians, Croatians and Serbs raised between roughly the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. They stand in the grass in rows, slabs shaped like chests and gabled roofs, with weathered carvings of crescent moons, spirals, hunters and dancers.
Read the complete Maculje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maculje is where the day begins. Next is Dolovi in the village of Umoljani.
Umoljani clings to the edge of the Bjelašnica massif above the Rakitnica canyon, an hour or so southwest of Sarajevo by road, and it is one of those mountain villages that feel a world away from the cities below. Stone houses with steep roofs, a small mosque and a scattering of shepherds' huts sit on a high green plateau, and nearby, at a spot known as Dolovi, a group of medieval tombstones called stećci lies in the grass. These carved limestone monuments, made between roughly the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, are found across Bosnia and neighbouring countries and were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2016. Their reliefs of hunters, dancers, spirals and crescent moons are a fascinating window onto a culture that left few written records.
Read the complete Dolovi in the village of Umoljani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dolovi in the village of Umoljani comes up about 115 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar.
The Old Bridge in Mostar is a single stone arch, slender and impossibly high, leaping across the emerald-green Neretva between two fortified towers. The Ottomans built it in the 1560s, designed by an architect named Mimar Hayruddin, and for more than four centuries it stood as a symbol of the city. On 9 November 1993, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was shelled and collapsed into the river. It was rebuilt with the original techniques and stone recovered from the riverbed and reopened in 2004, and the following year UNESCO listed the Old Bridge Area as a symbol of reconciliation and cultural coexistence.
Read the complete Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 260 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar. Next is back through Dolovi in the village of Umoljani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dolovi in the village of Umoljani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dolovi in the village of Umoljani, late in the day. Next is Maculje.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maculje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Maculje. That is the ride.
Maculje → Dolovi in the village of Umoljani is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Dolovi in the village of Umoljani → Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar is 145 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar → back through Dolovi in the village of Umoljani is 140 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Dolovi in the village of Umoljani → Maculje is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.