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 253 km round trip from Mostar - roughly 5 h 38 in the saddle. On the way it passes Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards, Vjetrenica Cave, Old City of Dubrovnik and back through Vjetrenica Cave. It crosses from Bosnia & Herzegovina into Croatia - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 48 km this is Adriatic Highway, Jadranska Magistrala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar is where the day begins. Next is Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards.
Radimlja, just outside Stolac in Herzegovina, is the finest of the stećak graveyards, and it lies right beside the main road, which makes it one of the easiest pieces of medieval Europe to stop for. Stećci are massive limestone tombstones, shaped like chests, slabs or little gabled houses, carved between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries across the medieval kingdom of Bosnia and neighbouring lands. Many are decorated with reliefs: spirals, vines, crescents, stars, hunting scenes, dancers holding hands, and knights with swords and shields, and one figure at Radimlja raises an oversized right hand in what may be a greeting or a blessing. In 2016 UNESCO listed a group of these graveyards across four countries together.
Read the complete Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vjetrenica Cave.
The karst country inland from Dubrovnik is a landscape of grey limestone hills, stony fields and long, flat-bottomed valleys called poljes, which flood in winter and dry out in summer. Popovo Polje, on the Bosnian side of the border, is one of the largest, and at its edge, near the village of Zavala, lies Vjetrenica, the most famous cave in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its name means wind cave, from the strong current of air that blows out of its entrance, cool in summer and noticeable from a distance.
Read the complete Vjetrenica Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Vjetrenica Cave. Next is Old City of Dubrovnik.
Dubrovnik is the place where the Dalmatian coast reaches its theatrical climax: a walled city of pale limestone thrust out into a sea that refuses to be any colour but deep blue. The walls run for nearly two kilometres around the old town, with towers, bastions and the great Minčeta fortress on the landward side, and inside them the marble-paved Stradun runs straight from the Pile Gate to the old port. For centuries this was the Republic of Ragusa, a small, astute maritime state that survived between Venice and the Ottoman Empire through trade, diplomacy and a famously effective tribute system, until Napoleon ended its independence in the early nineteenth century.
Read the complete Old City of Dubrovnik write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Dubrovnik, about halfway. Next is back through Vjetrenica Cave.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vjetrenica Cave write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vjetrenica Cave sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards comes up about 222 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar closes the day.
Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar → Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards → Vjetrenica Cave is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vjetrenica Cave → Old City of Dubrovnik is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Dubrovnik → back through Vjetrenica Cave is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vjetrenica Cave → back through Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stećci Medieval Tombstone Graveyards → Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.