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 428 km round trip from Bardejov - roughly 9 h 52 in the saddle. On the way it passes Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less, Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection, Church of St Leonard and Church of the Archangel Michael. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Slovakia into Poland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 56 km this is Tatra Foothills Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bardejov's main square is a long, gently sloping rectangle lined with Gothic and Renaissance burgher houses, their tall gables painted in pastel colours, with the Gothic Basilica of St Giles at the top and the old town hall standing alone in the middle. The town grew rich in the Middle Ages on trade between Hungary and Poland, and its walls, bastions and moat largely survive. Bardejov was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000, along with its Jewish suburb, with a synagogue and ritual bath from the eighteenth century, a reminder of the community that lived here until the Holocaust.
Read the complete Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve is where the day begins. Next is Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.
Hidden among the hills of the Beskid Sądecki, close to the Slovak border in southern Poland, the little wooden church at Powroźnik is one of the oldest of its kind still standing in the country. Its oldest parts date from around 1600, and it belongs to the group of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. A tserkva is an Eastern-rite church, and this one was built by the Lemkos, the Rusyn highlanders who farmed these valleys for centuries until most were forcibly resettled after the Second World War. Today it serves as a Catholic church, but the shape tells its origin story at once: a tower with a bulging onion-like cap, stepped shingle roofs and dark timber walls weathered almost black.
Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection.
The Lemkos, a mountain people of the Carpathians, built their churches of wood, with onion domes and steep shingle roofs stepping up in tiers toward the west tower, and the one at Owczary, in the Low Beskids south of Gorlice, is one of the finest. Built in the mid seventeenth century as a Greek Catholic church, it was later enlarged and painted inside with a rich polychrome decoration. After the Second World War the Lemkos were deported from this region in Operation Vistula, and the church was taken over by the Roman Catholic parish, while the Greek Catholic community has also returned to use it. It is part of the World Heritage listing of the Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine, inscribed in 2013.
Read the complete Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection. 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, about halfway. Next is Church of the Archangel Michael.
From the outside, the church in Dębno Podhalańskie looks like a sturdy wooden barn with a steep shingled roof and a squat tower, the kind of building you might ride past without a second glance. Step inside and the walls explode with colour: every surface covered in stencilled and painted patterns, animals, plants and geometric figures, dating back to around 1500, one of the best-preserved medieval painted interiors in Poland. The church, built of larch in the late fifteenth century, is part of the UNESCO listing of Wooden Churches of Southern Małopolska, a group of Gothic timber churches that show the skill of local carpenters who built without nails.
Read the complete Church of the Archangel Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of the Archangel Michael sits at 183 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church of St Leonard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of St Leonard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of St Leonard comes up about 269 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 336 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection. Next is back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less, late in the day. Next is Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 428 km.
Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve → Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less → Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection → Church of St Leonard is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of St Leonard → Church of the Archangel Michael is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of the Archangel Michael → back through Church of St Leonard is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of St Leonard → back through Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Owczary-Tserkva of Our Lady’s Protection → back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less → Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.