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.
287 km from Frydman to Frydman, about 6 h 34 of riding. The stops in between: Church of St Leonard, Salt Mine in Bochnia, Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines and Historic Centre of Kraków. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 55 km this is Tatra Foothills Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 101 km into the recorded legs you reach Salt Mine in Bochnia. Next is Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines.
Under the town of Wieliczka, at the southern edge of the Krakow suburbs, lies a labyrinth of tunnels, chambers and lakes cut out of salt, nine levels deep, with the lowest more than three hundred metres below the surface. Salt has been mined here since the thirteenth century, and the mine, together with the one at Bochnia some twenty kilometres east, was one of the first sites placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1978. Wieliczka has nearly nineteen thousand people, and the mine entrance is about a kilometre from the centre.
Read the complete Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines, about halfway. 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.
Historic Centre of Kraków sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines comes up about 157 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 185 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Salt Mine in Bochnia. 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, late in the day. Next is Church of the Archangel Michael.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of the Archangel Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 287 km.
Church of the Archangel Michael → Church of St Leonard is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of St Leonard → Salt Mine in Bochnia is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salt Mine in Bochnia → Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines → Historic Centre of Kraków is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Kraków → back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines → back through Salt Mine in Bochnia is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Salt Mine in Bochnia → back through Church of St Leonard is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of St Leonard → Church of the Archangel Michael is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.