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.
496 km from Tălmaciu to Tălmaciu, about 11 h 02 of riding. It goes by way of Titești - Dealul Cazanului, Monastery of Horezu, Stolniceni - Buridava Romană and Mârțești - Cetate. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Olt does something improbable south of Sibiu. Instead of going around the Carpathians, it cuts straight through them, carving a deep, winding gorge between the Făgăraș and Lotru ranges, and for two thousand years that gorge has been one of the great gateways between Transylvania and Wallachia. At its northern mouth, near the village of Boița, the Romans built a fort they called Caput Stenarum, the head of the narrows, to guard the entrance.
Read the complete Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude is where the day begins. Next is Titești - Dealul Cazanului.
The Olt is one of Romania's great rivers, and where it cuts through the Southern Carpathians, between Brezoi and Calimanesti, it does so in a long, narrow gorge that has been a corridor for armies and traders for two thousand years. Titesti and Perisani lie just off this corridor, in the hill country that rises on its western side, where the road leaves the traffic behind and climbs through orchards, hay meadows and beech woods. Dealul Cazanului, the Cauldron Hill, is one of those names that points at the shape of the land more than any particular monument.
Read the complete Titești - Dealul Cazanului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Titești - Dealul Cazanului comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monastery of Horezu.
Constantin Brâncoveanu, prince of Wallachia at the end of the seventeenth century, was a wealthy, cultured ruler who built churches, palaces and monasteries across his principality, and Horezu was his masterpiece. Founded in 1690, the monastery sits in a quiet valley in the foothills of the Căpățânii mountains, surrounded by walls, with a church at the centre of a courtyard lined with arcaded cells. It is the finest example of the Brâncovenesc style, a blend of Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque, with carved stone, painted interiors and elegant porches, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1993. In 1714, Brâncoveanu and his four sons were executed by the Ottomans in Istanbul; the Romanian Orthodox Church later canonised them as martyrs.
Read the complete Monastery of Horezu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 130 km into the recorded legs you reach Monastery of Horezu. Next is Stolniceni - Buridava Romană.
South of Râmnicu Vâlcea the Olt river leaves the mountains and broadens across a valley of orchards and villages, and on the terraces above it at Stolniceni lie the remains of Buridava, a Roman military settlement whose name the Romans borrowed from an older Dacian centre nearby. It sat on the Limes Alutanus, the frontier road along the Olt that guarded the eastern edge of Roman Dacia, and soldiers stationed here left inscriptions, bricks stamped with unit marks and the foundations of baths. The site is part of the Dacian frontier listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2024.
Read the complete Stolniceni - Buridava Romană write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stolniceni - Buridava Romană, about halfway. Next is Mârțești - Cetate.
South of the Carpathians, where the Wallachian plain starts to lift into hills, there is a quiet stretch of the Argeș county, and this point lies near Lunca Corbului, in a landscape of low ridges, orchards and wide fields. The name Cetate simply means fortress or citadel in Romanian, and the label suggests a place where an old defensive site was recorded, whether Roman or older.
Read the complete Mârțești - Cetate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mârțești - Cetate sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Stolniceni - Buridava Romană.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stolniceni - Buridava Romană write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stolniceni - Buridava Romană comes up about 328 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Monastery of Horezu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastery of Horezu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 365 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monastery of Horezu. Next is back through Titești - Dealul Cazanului.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Titești - Dealul Cazanului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Titești - Dealul Cazanului, late in the day. Next is Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 496 km.
Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude → Titești - Dealul Cazanului is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Titești - Dealul Cazanului → Monastery of Horezu is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery of Horezu → Stolniceni - Buridava Romană is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stolniceni - Buridava Romană → Mârțești - Cetate is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mârțești - Cetate → back through Stolniceni - Buridava Romană is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Stolniceni - Buridava Romană → back through Monastery of Horezu is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastery of Horezu → back through Titești - Dealul Cazanului is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Titești - Dealul Cazanului → Boița - Caput Stenarum / În Rude is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.