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.
246 km from Poienile Izei to Poienile Izei, about 5 h 50 of riding. On the way it passes Wooden Churches of Maramureş, Church of Saint Nicholas, Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a and Kuziy - Trybushany. It crosses from Romania into Ukraine - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
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 Church of Saint Nicholas.
Budești is one of the old villages of the Cosău valley in Maramureș, the far northern corner of Romania, where traditional life has survived longer than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its wooden church of St Nicholas, built in the seventeenth century, is a masterpiece of the local carpentry tradition: a dark timber body with a tall, steep shingled roof and a slender spire that seems to pierce the sky. Inside, the walls are covered with painted scenes from the Bible, and among the church's treasures is a coat of chain mail said to have belonged to Pintea the Brave, a legendary outlaw hero of the region. The church is one of eight in the UNESCO listing of the Wooden Churches of Maramureș.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 47 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of Saint Nicholas. Next is Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a.
In Maramures, they build in wood as if wood were stone. The valley of the Iza, in the north of Romania, near the Ukrainian border, is a country of green hills, haystacks, carved gates and tall, steep-roofed churches of dark oak and spruce, and eight of the wooden churches here, built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, are on the World Heritage list. The church of the Presentation of the Virgin at Barsana, dated to 1720, is one of them. It stands in the cemetery of the village, slender and dark, with a high, shingle-covered roof and a tower that rises like a pencil. Inside, the walls and ceiling are covered with paintings of saints and biblical stories in a naive and moving style.
Read the complete Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a, about halfway. 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.
Kuziy - Trybushany sits at 73 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a comes up about 170 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Church of Saint Nicholas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 199 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Church of Saint Nicholas. 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.
The route ends here after 246 km.
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 → Church of Saint Nicholas is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of Saint Nicholas → Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a → Kuziy - Trybushany is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of the Presentation of the Virgin a → back through Church of Saint Nicholas is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church of Saint Nicholas → back through Wooden Churches of Maramureş is 21 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.