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 425 km round trip from Berkovići - roughly 10 h 34 in the saddle. On the way it passes Vjetrenica Cave, Lokrum Island, St. Barbara and Fortified city of Kotor. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 50 km this is Adriatic Highway, Jadranska Magistrala, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Grey limestone, thin grass, a scatter of oaks and juniper, and among them heavy blocks of carved stone lying where they were set some six or seven hundred years ago. Potkuk, near the hamlet of Bitunja in eastern Herzegovina, is one of the necropolises of stećci, the medieval tombstones that were added to the World Heritage list in 2016 together with sites across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Read the complete Potkuk in Bitunja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Potkuk in Bitunja is where the day begins. 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.
Vjetrenica Cave comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lokrum Island.
From the walls of Dubrovnik you look straight across a short stretch of sea to a low, dark green island covered in pines and holm oaks. That is Lokrum, and it is the closest thing the city has to a back garden. No cars or motorbikes are allowed on it, and nobody may stay overnight. You leave the bike on the mainland, catch one of the regular boats from the old harbour, and in about a quarter of an hour you step onto a quay with peacocks strutting about as if they owned the place, which they more or less do.
Read the complete Lokrum Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 115 km into the recorded legs you reach Lokrum Island. Next is St. Barbara, 39 km on.
Konavle is the long, fertile valley that runs south east of Dubrovnik towards the Montenegrin border, and St. Barbara is a small church at Dubravka, near its upper edge, surrounded by a field of medieval tombstones. These stećci, heavy carved blocks of limestone dating from the late Middle Ages, are part of the cross-border UNESCO listing of stećci cemeteries shared by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. The Dubravka group is one of the most accessible in Croatia, and the setting, with the church, the old stones and the view over the valley, is quietly beautiful.
Read the complete St. Barbara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St. Barbara, about halfway. Next is Fortified city of Kotor.
Kotor is a walled medieval town squeezed between a vertical limestone mountain and a deep green bay, and the whole arrangement looks almost too neat to be real. The bay is not a fjord, as people like to say, but a drowned river canyon, a ria, whose channels twist inland in several arms so that the mountains seem to close behind you as you ride around it. Black Mountain, Montenegro itself, takes its name from the dark forest on Mount Lovcen, which rises straight above the town to nearly fifteen hundred metres.
Read the complete Fortified city of Kotor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortified city of Kotor sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through St. Barbara, 39 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete St. Barbara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through St. Barbara comes up about 261 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Lokrum Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lokrum Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 309 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Lokrum Island. 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, late in the day. Next is Potkuk in Bitunja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Potkuk in Bitunja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 425 km.
Potkuk in Bitunja → Vjetrenica Cave is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vjetrenica Cave → Lokrum Island is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lokrum Island → St. Barbara is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St. Barbara → Fortified city of Kotor is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortified city of Kotor → back through St. Barbara is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through St. Barbara → back through Lokrum Island is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lokrum Island → back through Vjetrenica Cave is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vjetrenica Cave → Potkuk in Bitunja is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.