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 244 km round trip from Bansko - roughly 5 h 26 in the saddle. On the way it passes \Pchelino Convent\ Complex, Orlitsa Convent Complex and back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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.
Pirin National Park 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 107 km into the recorded legs. Next is Orlitsa Convent Complex.
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.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Orlitsa Convent Complex. 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 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.
Back at Pirin National Park. That is the ride.
Pirin National Park → \Pchelino Convent\ Complex is 107 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
\Pchelino Convent\ Complex → Orlitsa Convent Complex is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Orlitsa Convent Complex → back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through \Pchelino Convent\ Complex → Pirin National Park is 107 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.