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 684 km round trip from Rila - roughly 14 h 57 in the saddle. On the way it passes \Pchelino Convent\ Complex, Pirin National Park, Rila Monastery and back through Rila Monastery. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The town of Rila is a small place at the foot of the mountains that bear its name, and the Orlitsa convent stands just a short way outside it, in the valley of the Rila river. It is a quiet complex, a working community of nuns, with a small church and gardens, and it gets a tiny fraction of the visitors that go to the great monastery further up the valley. For that reason alone it is worth a stop, since you can sit in the courtyard and hear the river instead of a crowd.
Read the complete Orlitsa Convent Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Orlitsa Convent Complex is where the day begins. Next is \Pchelino Convent\ Complex.
The mountains of southwestern Bulgaria are among the wildest in the Balkans, and the area between Rila and Pirin holds a string of small monasteries tucked into forested valleys. During centuries of Ottoman rule these monasteries kept the Bulgarian language, the Orthodox faith and the art of icon painting alive, and the great Rila Monastery, founded in the tenth century around the hermitage of Saint Ivan of Rila, became the national symbol.
Read the complete \Pchelino Convent\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
\Pchelino Convent\ Complex comes up about 14 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pirin National Park.
Vihren, at 2,914 metres the highest peak of the Pirin mountains and the third highest in the Balkans, rises above the town of Bansko in south-western Bulgaria in a sharp, pale pyramid of marble. The Pirin National Park protects the high country around it, a landscape of granite and marble peaks, glacial cirques, more than a hundred lakes and ancient forests of pine and fir, and it was listed by UNESCO in 1983.
Read the complete Pirin National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Pirin National Park. Next is Rila Monastery.
The road to Rila Monastery climbs a long valley through forests of beech and spruce, and when the monastery appears the effect is theatrical. Its walls enclose a courtyard of striped arcades in black, white and red, with a church in the middle covered in frescoes, and behind it the green flanks of the Rila mountains rise towards peaks of more than two and a half thousand metres. It is the largest and most important monastery in Bulgaria, and UNESCO listed it in 1983.
Read the complete Rila Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rila Monastery, about halfway. Next is Pirin National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pirin National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pirin National Park sits at 193 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rila Monastery.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rila Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rila Monastery comes up about 452 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pirin National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pirin National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 563 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pirin National Park. Next is back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete \Pchelino Convent\ Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex, late in the day. Next is Orlitsa Convent Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Orlitsa Convent Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 684 km.
Orlitsa Convent Complex → \Pchelino Convent\ Complex is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
\Pchelino Convent\ Complex → Pirin National Park is 107 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pirin National Park → Rila Monastery is 110 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rila Monastery → Pirin National Park is 111 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pirin National Park → back through Rila Monastery is 110 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rila Monastery → back through Pirin National Park is 111 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pirin National Park → back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex is 107 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex → Orlitsa Convent Complex is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.