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 324 km round trip from Divača - roughly 5 h 28 in the saddle. The stops in between: Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba, Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on and back through Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba. It crosses from Slovenia into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
Škocjan Caves is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on. Next is back through Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba, late in the day. Next is 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 at Škocjan Caves. That is the ride.
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 → Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Idrijska Bela - Putrih’s Water Barrier on → back through Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Ba → Škocjan Caves is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.