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 345 km round trip from Oświęcim - roughly 7 h 02 in the saddle. The stops in between: Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi, Historic Centre of Kraków, Salt Mine in Bochnia and Church of St Leonard. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is Polish Eagles Nests Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
This is a stop to make in silence. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camps, built in occupied Poland on the edge of the town of Oświęcim, and between 1940 and 1945 around 1.1 million people were murdered here, the vast majority of them Jews from across Europe, along with Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others. The memorial and museum, which includes the original camp, Auschwitz I, and the vast camp at Birkenau, Auschwitz II, about three kilometres away, was listed by UNESCO in 1979 as a reminder of the cruelty of humanity.
Read the complete Auschwitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Auschwitz is where the day begins. Next is Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
In 1600, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, a Polish nobleman, began to build a chapel on a hill south-west of Kraków, modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Over the following decades, he and his descendants added dozens of chapels and churches spread over the hills, laid out to recreate the Passion of Christ and the life of the Virgin, with the landscape itself standing in for Jerusalem. The result, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Kraków.
Every hour, a trumpeter plays a short melody from the taller tower of St Mary's Basilica on Kraków's market square, and every time the tune breaks off abruptly mid-phrase. Legend says it commemorates a watchman shot by a Tatar arrow in the throat as he sounded the alarm in the thirteenth century, and the hejnał has been played that way ever since, broadcast daily on Polish radio at noon. It is a fitting introduction to a city that wears its history so openly. The Rynek Główny, the main square, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, with the Renaissance Cloth Hall in the middle, and the historic centre, including Wawel Hill and the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, was among the first sites ever placed on the UNESCO list in 1978.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Kraków write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Kraków. Next is Salt Mine in Bochnia.
People were mining salt at Bochnia by the middle of the thirteenth century, which makes it the oldest salt mine in Poland and one of the oldest in Europe still open to visitors. For centuries the salt from here and from Wieliczka, about twenty-five kilometres to the west, filled the coffers of the Polish kings; at times it accounted for a remarkable share of the royal income. Together the two mines and the royal castle at Wieliczka form a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Read the complete Salt Mine in Bochnia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salt Mine in Bochnia, about halfway. Next is Church of St Leonard.
The hills around Limanowa in southern Poland have a nickname that suits them perfectly: the Beskid Wyspowy, the Island Beskids. Instead of forming a continuous ridge, the summits rise individually from the surrounding valleys like islands from a sea, each one wooded, rounded and separate. Driving through the area is a constant game of spotting the next hump on the horizon. The famous wooden church of St Leonard stands at Lipnica Murowana, in the hills to the north of here, and it is one of the Wooden Churches of Southern Lesser Poland listed by UNESCO in 2003.
Read the complete Church of St Leonard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of St Leonard sits at 185 km, about halfway. Next is back through Salt Mine in Bochnia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Salt Mine in Bochnia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Salt Mine in Bochnia comes up about 217 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Historic Centre of Kraków.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Kraków write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 258 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Historic Centre of Kraków. Next is back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi, late in the day. Next is Auschwitz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Auschwitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 345 km.
Auschwitz → Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → Historic Centre of Kraków is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Kraków → Salt Mine in Bochnia is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salt Mine in Bochnia → Church of St Leonard is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of St Leonard → back through Salt Mine in Bochnia is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Salt Mine in Bochnia → back through Historic Centre of Kraków is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Kraków → back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → Auschwitz is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.