Mramor in Musići and Borak in the village of Burati
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
362 km
Riding-time estimate
7 h 50
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 362 km round trip from Olovo - roughly 7 h 50 in the saddle. On the way it passes Olovci, Bečani, Luburića polje and Borak in the village of Burati. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Mramor in Musići
In a meadow near the village of Musići, in the hills around Olovo in central Bosnia, stands a group of stećci, the great carved medieval tombstones that are unique to this part of the Balkans. They date roughly from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, and the people who raised them were Bosnian Christians, Catholics and Orthodox alike. The Musići necropolis is part of the group of stećci cemeteries inscribed by UNESCO in 2016, and its stones are among the finest: big slabs and house-shaped blocks decorated with spirals, crosses, vines, hunting scenes and strange, almost abstract human figures.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Mramor in Musići is where the day begins. Next is Olovci.
2. Olovci
In a meadow above the Drinjača valley, a short way from the small town of Kladanj, a group of carved limestone blocks lies scattered among the grass and young trees. These are stećci, the medieval tombstones of Bosnia and the surrounding lands, and Olovci is one of the necropolises listed together by UNESCO as a single heritage site spread across four countries. The stones date roughly from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Some are plain slabs or chests, others shaped like little houses with pitched roofs, and the best of them carry reliefs: spirals, crescent moons, vines, hunting scenes, a figure with a raised hand. Nobody is entirely sure who was buried under them, and the arguments about whether they belonged to Catholics, Orthodox or the Bosnian church have run for a century.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Olovci comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bečani.
3. Bečani
The hills above the Drinjača river in north-eastern Bosnia are covered with beech and oak, and in clearings on the slopes stand the stećci, large limestone tombstones, some shaped like chests and some like gabled roofs, carved with crescent moons, spirals, hands, swords and hunting scenes. Bečani is one of the places where they are found, on the outskirts of the little town of Šekovići, three kilometres away, in the eastern part of the country that is now Republika Srpska.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Bečani. Next is Luburića polje.
4. Luburića polje
The Romanija plateau east of Sarajevo is a strange and beautiful upland: rolling meadows and dark pine forests at around a thousand metres, under a sky that seems bigger than it should. Luburića polje, a field near the town of Sokolac, holds one of the necropolises of stećci, the medieval tombstones of the Balkans listed by UNESCO, and the surrounding countryside has been a place of burial for thousands of years.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Luburića polje, about halfway. Next is Borak in the village of Burati.
5. Borak in the village of Burati
Scattered across the meadows and forest edges of Bosnia and Herzegovina are thousands of carved medieval tombstones called stećci, great blocks of limestone shaped like chests, slabs or little gabled houses, some plain and some carved with spirals, vines, crescent moons, hunting scenes, dancers and raised hands. They date mostly from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, and together with sites in Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia they were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2016 as the Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards. Borak, near the village of Burati in the hills above Rogatica, is one of these graveyards, a cluster of stones lying among the grass where they have stood for six hundred years or more.