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 421 km round trip from Ljubljana - roughly 6 h 14 in the saddle. The stops in between: Idrija - Smelting Plant, Škocjan Caves, Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba and back through Škocjan Caves. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. 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.
In the middle of Ljubljana, on Mirje street, a long stretch of reconstructed wall recalls the Roman town of Emona. The Romans founded Emona in the early first century AD, on a grid of streets beside the Ljubljanica river, as a frontier outpost and trading town on the road between Italy and the Danube. It had walls, gates, forums, baths and a population of several thousand. Later, the town was sacked by Huns and other invaders, and its stones were reused for centuries, so that very little survived above ground.
Read the complete Roman Walls in Mirje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman Walls in Mirje is where the day begins. Next is Idrija - Smelting Plant.
In 1490, so the story goes, a tub-maker soaking a wooden vessel in a spring found shiny drops of liquid metal at the bottom. It was mercury, and the mine that grew from that discovery at Idrija, in the hills of western Slovenia, became the second largest mercury mine in the world, operating for five centuries. Together with Almadén in Spain, it was inscribed by UNESCO in 2012. The smelting plant, where the ore was roasted to release the mercury vapour, was the heart of the operation, and its buildings and furnaces now tell the story of the industry and its toll on the workers.
Read the complete Idrija - Smelting Plant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Idrija - Smelting Plant comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Škocjan Caves.
Underneath the sleepy stone villages of the Slovenian Karst, a river called the Reka plunges into the earth and carves one of the largest underground canyons known anywhere. The Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO site since 1986, are the reason the word karst became the scientific name for this kind of limestone landscape everywhere in the world. Inside, a narrow footbridge spans the Reka gorge far above the roaring water, the chamber walls disappear into darkness, and the scale is so huge that your mind struggles to accept it is all underground.
Read the complete Škocjan Caves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Škocjan Caves. Next is Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba.
Aquileia today is a village of fewer than three thousand people in the flat farmland of Friuli, near the head of the Adriatic, but two thousand years ago it was one of the largest and richest cities of the Roman Empire. Founded as a Latin colony in 181 BC to guard the northeastern approaches to Italy, it grew into a great trading port, connected to the sea by a river and a canal, through which amber, wine, oil and glass moved between the Mediterranean and the lands beyond the Alps. Attila sacked it in 452, and many of its people fled to the lagoons, where their descendants helped found Venice and Grado.
Read the complete Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba, about halfway. Next is back through Škocjan Caves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Škocjan Caves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Škocjan Caves sits at 225 km, about halfway. Next is back through Idrija - Smelting Plant.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Idrija - Smelting Plant write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Idrija - Smelting Plant comes up about 363 km into the recorded legs. Next is Roman Walls in Mirje.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roman Walls in Mirje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roman Walls in Mirje closes the day.
Roman Walls in Mirje → Idrija - Smelting Plant is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Idrija - Smelting Plant → Škocjan Caves is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Škocjan Caves → Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba → back through Škocjan Caves is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Škocjan Caves → back through Idrija - Smelting Plant is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Idrija - Smelting Plant → Roman Walls in Mirje is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.