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 Rila it runs 484 km to Rila; allow about 7 h 48 of riding. On the way it passes Boyana Church, Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve and back through Boyana Church. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Boyana Church.
Boyana is a village on the southern edge of Sofia, tucked against the lower slopes of Mount Vitosha, and it holds a small church that changed the history of European painting, or at least its footnotes. The church is made of three parts built over several centuries, but the middle part, a tiny two-storey chapel, was decorated in 1259 for Sebastokrator Kaloyan, a local ruler, and his wife Desislava, who are painted in the narthex as donors. The frescoes show eighty-nine scenes with more than two hundred and forty human figures, and they are astonishing for their realism. The faces have individual expressions, the saints look like real people, and they predate the Italian Renaissance by generations.
Read the complete Boyana Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boyana Church comes up about 112 km into the recorded legs. Next is Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve.
The Balkan range, the Stara Planina, runs across the middle of Bulgaria from the Serbian border to the Black Sea, and its central section is the wildest, highest and most heavily forested part. The Central Balkan National Park protects this area, and within it, the Boatin Reserve guards a stretch of ancient beech forest on the northern slopes, one of the components of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a UNESCO site that stretches across many countries.
Read the complete Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 242 km into the recorded legs you reach Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve. Next is back through Boyana Church.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Boyana Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Boyana Church, late in the day. Next is \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 at \Pchelino Convent\ Complex. That is the ride.
\Pchelino Convent\ Complex → Boyana Church is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Boyana Church → Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve is 130 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Central Balkan - Boatin Reserve → back through Boyana Church is 130 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Boyana Church → \Pchelino Convent\ Complex is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.