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.
278 km from Ljubljana to Ljubljana, about 4 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Idrija - Smelting Plant, Škocjan Caves and back through Idrija - Smelting Plant. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Trnovo Bridge is a modest, lovely thing that sums up Plecnik's way of working. In the 1930s, he rebuilt a small bridge over the Gradaščica stream in the Trnovo district of Ljubljana, at the foot of the hill where the church of St Francis of Assisi stands, and he made it wide, wider than the street it joined, so that it became a small square as much as a crossing. The bridge is lined with pillars and balustrades of pale stone, and he planted two rows of birch trees along its edges, a gentle, living touch in the middle of the city. The pyramids at the corners are a nod to Egyptian forms, which he used with a sense of play.
Read the complete Trnovo Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Trnovo Bridge 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 139 km into the recorded legs you reach Škocjan Caves. 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, late in the day. Next is Trnovo Bridge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Trnovo Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Trnovo Bridge. That is the ride.
Trnovo Bridge → 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 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → Trnovo Bridge is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.