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 459 km round trip from Novi Pazar - roughly 8 h 14 in the saddle. The stops in between: Medieval Monuments in Kosovo, Church of the Virgin of Leviša and back through Medieval Monuments in Kosovo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Serbia into Kosovo - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Sopoćani is one of the quietest and most beautiful monasteries in Serbia, and you may well be the only person in the church. It stands in a green valley a few kilometres west of Novi Pazar, near the springs of the Raška river, in a region that was the heartland of the early Serbian kingdom. King Stefan Uroš I founded it in the 1250s, and he is buried here, and the church was decorated with frescoes between about 1260 and 1270, painted by artists whose name we do not know but whose command of colour and space put them in the first rank of medieval European painting. UNESCO listed Sopoćani together with the nearby Old Ras in 1979.
Read the complete Sopoćani Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sopoćani Monastery is where the day begins. Next is Medieval Monuments in Kosovo.
The Patriarchate of Peć is a cluster of four churches under one red-tinged roof, tucked at the mouth of the Rugova gorge on the edge of the town of Peja in western Kosovo. It was the seat of the Serbian Orthodox archbishops from the thirteenth century, and the heart of the church for centuries, with the frescoed churches built and extended over generations. The effect inside is intimate, with low arches, dim light and walls covered in saints, and the nuns who live there today run a small shop with candles and icons. The place is part of the UNESCO listing of medieval monuments in Kosovo, from 2004, along with Dečani, Gračanica and the church of Our Lady of Ljeviš in Prizren.
Read the complete Medieval Monuments in Kosovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Medieval Monuments in Kosovo comes up about 126 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of the Virgin of Leviša.
In the middle of Prizren's old town, behind a wall and a fence, stands a brick-and-stone church whose bell tower rises above the rooftops. This is the Church of the Virgin of Leviša, Bogorodica Ljeviška in Serbian, one of the most important medieval monuments in the Balkans. It was rebuilt in the early fourteenth century under the Serbian king Milutin on the site of an older church, and its interior was covered with frescoes that are among the finest of their time.
Read the complete Church of the Virgin of Leviša write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 226 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of the Virgin of Leviša. Next is back through Medieval Monuments in Kosovo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Medieval Monuments in Kosovo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Medieval Monuments in Kosovo, late in the day. Next is Sopoćani Monastery.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sopoćani Monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Sopoćani Monastery. That is the ride.
Sopoćani Monastery → Medieval Monuments in Kosovo is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Medieval Monuments in Kosovo → Church of the Virgin of Leviša is 100 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of the Virgin of Leviša → back through Medieval Monuments in Kosovo is 107 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Medieval Monuments in Kosovo → Sopoćani Monastery is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.