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 486 km round trip from Peć - roughly 10 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Stari Ras and Sopoćani, Grčko groblje and back through Stari Ras and Sopoćani. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Kosovo into Serbia - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The Serbian Orthodox Church has had its seat at Pec since the thirteenth century, and the Patriarchate stands where the Rugova gorge opens onto the plain, with the walls of the mountains rising straight behind it. Three churches, joined by a shared porch, make up the complex, and inside them the walls are covered in frescoes that range from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The oldest, the Church of the Holy Apostles, was built under Archbishop Arsenije and has a serene, early painting style, while the later churches added by his successors show the growing wealth and ambition of the medieval Serbian state. UNESCO lists it together with Visoki Decani and other monasteries as the Medieval Monuments in Kosovo.
Read the complete Patriarchate of Peć Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Patriarchate of Peć Monastery is where the day begins. Next is Stari Ras and Sopoćani.
In the hills of southwestern Serbia, near the town of Novi Pazar, lie the ruins of Ras, the first capital of the medieval Serbian state, and the monastery of Sopoćani, which holds some of the finest Byzantine painting in Europe. Stefan Nemanja, founder of the dynasty that ruled for two centuries, was born in this region, and the monuments here were the heart of his realm. Ras was a fortress on a hill above the river, and a short distance away the little church of St Peter, one of the oldest in Serbia, stands on a mound of an earlier cemetery with a round, early plan that suggests Byzantine and local roots.
Read the complete Stari Ras and Sopoćani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stari Ras and Sopoćani comes up about 121 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grčko groblje.
Pljevlja lies in a high basin in the north of Montenegro, an hour or so from the great canyon of the Tara and the peaks of Durmitor, and it is a town that people rarely visit on purpose. It has a coal mine and a power station, and in winter smoke can hang in the valley. But the old centre has two buildings that deserve a stop, the Husein-pasha mosque, a sixteenth-century Ottoman building with a tall slender minaret and painted interior, and the Holy Trinity monastery, with its fine iconostasis, carved by local craftsmen in the nineteenth century. The mix of mosque and church a few minutes apart says a lot about this part of the Balkans.
Read the complete Grčko groblje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 250 km into the recorded legs you reach Grčko groblje. Next is back through Stari Ras and Sopoćani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stari Ras and Sopoćani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stari Ras and Sopoćani, late in the day. Next is Patriarchate of Peć Monastery.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Patriarchate of Peć Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Patriarchate of Peć Monastery. That is the ride.
Patriarchate of Peć Monastery → Stari Ras and Sopoćani is 121 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Stari Ras and Sopoćani → Grčko groblje is 129 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Grčko groblje → back through Stari Ras and Sopoćani is 114 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Stari Ras and Sopoćani → Patriarchate of Peć Monastery is 122 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.