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.
322 km from Asprángeloi to Asprángeloi, about 6 h 50 of riding. The stops in between: Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra, Butrint and back through Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Greece into Albania - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 68 km this is Albanian Riviera, SH8, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the mountains north of Ioannina, forty-odd stone villages cling to the slopes of the Pindus, linked by cobbled mule paths and arched bridges that seem to grow out of the rock. This is Zagori, a region of grey slate roofs, plane trees, rushing streams and one of the deepest gorges in the world, Vikos. In 2023 it was added to the World Heritage list as a cultural landscape, recognising how people and mountains shaped each other here over centuries.
Read the complete Zagori Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zagori Cultural Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra.
Gjirokastër is built of stone, and it means that literally. The old houses climbing the slopes below the castle are made of grey limestone, roofed with heavy slabs of the same stone, and tall and narrow like small fortresses, with the lower floors used for storage and cisterns and the living quarters above. The town grew under Ottoman rule, and its architecture, preserved as a museum town in the communist era, earned it a place on the UNESCO list in 2005, with Berat added in 2008. The castle, one of the largest in the Balkans, holds a collection of artillery, a captured American aircraft from the Cold War, and a prison with a grim history.
Read the complete Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra comes up about 93 km into the recorded legs. Next is Butrint.
At the southern tip of Albania, on a wooded headland between a lagoon and the narrow Vivari channel, the ruins of Butrint have been layering up for close to three thousand years. Greek colonists from Corfu, just across the strait, built a sanctuary and a theatre here; the Romans made it a colony and added baths, an aqueduct and villas; the Byzantines raised a great baptistery with a mosaic floor of birds and animals; and the Venetians left a fortified tower and a triangular castle by the water. Wandering the shaded paths among laurel and eucalyptus, you move from one century to the next in a few steps, with frogs croaking in the flooded parts of the agora and the lagoon glinting through the trees. The site has been on the UNESCO list since 1992 and is the heart of a national park.
Read the complete Butrint write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 161 km into the recorded legs you reach Butrint. Next is back through Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra, late in the day. Next is Zagori Cultural Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zagori Cultural Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Zagori Cultural Landscape. That is the ride.
Zagori Cultural Landscape → Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra → Butrint is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Butrint → back through Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastra → Zagori Cultural Landscape is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.