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.
From Oświęcim it runs 225 km to Oświęcim; allow about 4 h 51 of riding. It goes by way of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi, Historic Centre of Kraków, Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka and back through Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka.
For about 36 km this is Polish Eagles Nests Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
17 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it. Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Birkenau is the second and largest part of the Auschwitz camp complex, built by the Nazi regime from 1941 on the flat land near Brzezinka, just outside Oświęcim in southern Poland. It is where most of the million or so people murdered at Auschwitz were killed, the great majority of them Jews. The camp was meant to be seen from the entrance, with the brick gatehouse and the railway line running straight through it, and that scale is the first thing that silences visitors. There is no softening it, and nobody who goes should expect to.
Read the complete Birkenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Birkenau 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 50 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.
At least about 86 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Kraków. Next is Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka.
Wieliczka is a town that sits on top of a vanished sea. Millions of years ago, this part of southern Poland lay under a shallow, salty basin, and as the water evaporated it left thick beds of rock salt, which people have mined for about seven hundred years. The Saltworks Castle, the Żupny Castle, was the administrative heart of the business, a medieval fortified complex that housed the managers, the accounts and the royal officers who ran one of the richest enterprises in Poland, since salt was money. For centuries the revenue from Wieliczka and neighbouring Bochnia paid a significant share of the Crown's expenses.
Read the complete Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka, about halfway. Next is 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.
Historic Centre of Kraków sits at 127 km, about halfway. Next is back through Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka comes up about 126 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 139 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 Birkenau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Birkenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 225 km.
Birkenau → Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 50 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 → Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka → Historic Centre of Kraków is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Kraków → back through Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka → back through Historic Centre of Kraków is 13 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 → Birkenau is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.