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 Kalampáka it runs 474 km to Kalampáka; allow about 9 h 10 of riding. The stops in between: Zagori Cultural Landscape, Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra and back through Zagori Cultural Landscape. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Greece into Albania - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 130 km this is Greece Meteora and Pindus Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Meteora is the kind of place you assume is a trick of photography until you round the bend. Enormous grey pillars of rock rise out of the Thessaly plain, some more than 300 metres high, and on top of several of them sit monasteries, walls and windows flush with the cliff edge. The name means suspended in the air, and the sandstone and conglomerate towers were shaped over millions of years by water, wind and earthquakes, long before anyone thought to build on them.
Read the complete Meteora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Meteora is where the day begins. Next is Zagori Cultural Landscape.
In the mountains north of Ioannina, forty-odd stone villages cling to the slopes of the Pindus, linked by cobbled mule paths and arched bridges that seem to grow out of the rock. This is Zagori, a region of grey slate roofs, plane trees, rushing streams and one of the deepest gorges in the world, Vikos. In 2023 it was added to the World Heritage list as a cultural landscape, recognising how people and mountains shaped each other here over centuries.
Read the complete Zagori Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zagori Cultural Landscape comes up about 130 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra.
Gjirokastër is built of stone, and it means that literally. The old houses climbing the slopes below the castle are made of grey limestone, roofed with heavy slabs of the same stone, and tall and narrow like small fortresses, with the lower floors used for storage and cisterns and the living quarters above. The town grew under Ottoman rule, and its architecture, preserved as a museum town in the communist era, earned it a place on the UNESCO list in 2005, with Berat added in 2008. The castle, one of the largest in the Balkans, holds a collection of artillery, a captured American aircraft from the Cold War, and a prison with a grim history.
Read the complete Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 223 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra. Next is back through Zagori Cultural Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zagori Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zagori Cultural Landscape, late in the day. Next is Meteora.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Meteora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Meteora. That is the ride.
Meteora → Zagori Cultural Landscape is 130 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Zagori Cultural Landscape → Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra → back through Zagori Cultural Landscape is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Zagori Cultural Landscape → Meteora is 158 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.