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 319 km round trip from Ljubljana - roughly 5 h 43 in the saddle. The stops in between: Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on, City Fortress of Palmanova and back through Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on. It crosses from Slovenia into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ljubljana is a small capital with a big reputation for charm, and much of that comes from the river. The Ljubljanica runs through the centre in a shallow curve, with cafes along both banks, willows trailing in the water and bridges at every few steps. The architect Joze Plecnik, who worked here for much of the first half of the twentieth century, shaped the embankments, the market colonnade and the bridges, and his work was listed by UNESCO in 2021 as part of a series of his buildings.
Read the complete Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge is where the day begins. Next is Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on.
The Klavže at Idrijska Bela are a surprising piece of engineering, a huge stone wall built across a narrow gorge in the eighteenth century, with a gate in the middle. The idea was brilliant and simple. The mercury mine at Idrija, one of the largest in Europe, needed vast quantities of timber for its shafts and furnaces, and the forests were in the hills, far from the town. So the woodcutters piled logs behind the barrier, the gate was opened and the stored water carried the logs in a rush down the stream to the mine. Such water barriers, called klavže in Slovenian, were used here for generations, and the one named after Putrih is among the grandest.
Read the complete Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is City Fortress of Palmanova.
From the air Palmanova is a perfect nine-pointed star, and even from the saddle you can feel the geometry. The roads come in through monumental gates, cross the moats and ramparts, and run dead straight to a vast hexagonal piazza in the middle, where the whole town seems to stop and look at itself. It is one of the purest examples of an ideal Renaissance city ever built, and it sits on the flat Friulian plain between Udine and the Adriatic like a diagram that somebody forgot to take back.
Read the complete City Fortress of Palmanova write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 159 km into the recorded legs you reach City Fortress of Palmanova. Next is back through Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on, late in the day. Next is Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge. That is the ride.
Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge → Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on → City Fortress of Palmanova is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
City Fortress of Palmanova → back through Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on → Promenade along the Embankments and Bridge is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.