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 Gjirokastër it runs 504 km to Gjirokastër; allow about 12 h 41 of riding. It goes by way of Old Town of Corfu, Zagori Cultural Landscape and back through Old Town of Corfu. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Albania into Greece - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 72 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Gjirokastër is a city of stone, and it makes you look up. Houses with thick walls and slate roofs, many built as tower-like fortified homes called kulla, climb the steep hillside under a huge castle, and the cobbled lanes that link them are so slanted that you will think twice about riding up them. The old town was recognised by UNESCO in 2005 as a rare surviving example of an Ottoman town with its character intact, and it has a dignified, slightly melancholy air.
Read the complete Museum-City of Gjirokastra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Museum-City of Gjirokastra is where the day begins. Next is Old Town of Corfu.
Corfu is where the Greek world met Venice, and the old town shows it in every lane. For more than four centuries, from the late fourteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, the island belonged to the Venetian Republic, which fortified it against the Ottomans, so the town has two great fortresses, tall narrow houses with washing lines, and a maze of alleys called kantounia, which are cooler and more intimate than any grand boulevard. UNESCO listed the old town in 2007. The French arrived briefly under Napoleon and left the Liston, an arcade modelled on Paris's Rue de Rivoli, and the British, who ruled the islands from 1815 to 1864, left cricket, which is still played on the Spianada, the broad green esplanade by the sea, and ginger beer, called tsitsibira.
Read the complete Old Town of Corfu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old Town of Corfu comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 253 km into the recorded legs you reach Zagori Cultural Landscape. Next is back through Old Town of Corfu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Town of Corfu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Old Town of Corfu, late in the day. Next is Museum-City of Gjirokastra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Museum-City of Gjirokastra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Museum-City of Gjirokastra. That is the ride.
Museum-City of Gjirokastra → Old Town of Corfu is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Old Town of Corfu → Zagori Cultural Landscape is 165 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Zagori Cultural Landscape → back through Old Town of Corfu is 164 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Old Town of Corfu → Museum-City of Gjirokastra is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.