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 Poienile Izei it runs 146 km to Poienile Izei; allow about 3 h 35 of riding. The stops in between: Wooden Churches of Maramureş, Kuziy - Trybushany and back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş. It crosses from Romania into Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 19 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Maramureș is one of the few corners of Europe where wood is still the language of the sacred, and the church of Saint Parascheva at Poienile Izei is a good place to learn it. It stands on a small rise above the Izei valley, a dark timber church with a steep, double-tiered shingled roof and a slender spire, built in the early seventeenth century and moved to its present spot later. Inside, the walls and ceiling carry painted scenes from the eighteenth century, and the one that always gets quoted is a vivid Last Judgment in which sinners get remarkably specific punishments.
Read the complete Church of the Holy Parasceve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of the Holy Parasceve is where the day begins. Next is Wooden Churches of Maramureş.
Maramureș is a region in the far north of Romania, along the Ukrainian border, where traditions have survived more strongly than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its villages are known for their carved wooden gates, their haystacks and their wooden churches, eight of which form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bârsana, in the valley of the Iza river, has one of them, a church built in the eighteenth century, with a tall slender spire and a steep shingled roof.
Read the complete Wooden Churches of Maramureş write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wooden Churches of Maramureş comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kuziy - Trybushany.
The river Tisza runs fast and green out of the Ukrainian Carpathians, and for many kilometres it forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian bank, the forests of Kuziy and Trybushany are among the primeval beech woods protected in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and listed by UNESCO as part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. From the Romanian side, around Valea Vișeului, you look across the river at steep, wooded slopes where the trees have grown and died without interference for centuries.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Kuziy - Trybushany. Next is back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wooden Churches of Maramureş write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş, late in the day. Next is Church of the Holy Parasceve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of the Holy Parasceve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Church of the Holy Parasceve. That is the ride.
Church of the Holy Parasceve → Wooden Churches of Maramureş is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wooden Churches of Maramureş → Kuziy - Trybushany is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş → Church of the Holy Parasceve is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.