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.
389 km from Corabia to Corabia, about 8 h 07 of riding. It goes by way of Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort, Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor, Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis and Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui. It crosses from Bulgaria into Romania - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
At Celei, a few kilometres from Corabia on the Danube, the Romans built a bridge. It is a thing worth pausing over, because the bridge was built in AD 328, in the time of Constantine the Great, and it linked the Roman fortress of Sucidava on the northern bank with the province on the other side. The bridge was nearly two and a half kilometres long, one of the grandest engineering projects of the late empire, and it gave Rome a way to project power across the river long after the rest of the frontier had begun to crumble. A later emperor, Justinian, rebuilt Sucidava in the sixth century, and the fortress was in use for a very long time.
Read the complete Corabia - Sucidava / Celei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corabia - Sucidava / Celei is where the day begins. Next is Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort.
Slăveni is farm country, and the fort here is the sort of ruin you have to meet halfway. "La Cetate" simply means "at the fortress", the name locals gave to a rise in the fields long before anyone excavated it, and what remains of the Roman auxiliary fort is mostly a matter of banks, ditches and the shape of the ground rather than standing walls. If you expect a Hadrian's Wall photograph you will be disappointed; if you like imagining a few hundred soldiers watching a very flat horizon, you will be fine.
Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.
Out on the flat Romanian plain east of the Olt river, the village of Crâmpoia sits among endless fields of wheat, maize and sunflowers, and its name has a place in Roman history. A Roman earthen fort near the village stood on the Limes Transalutanus, the frontier line that the Romans built east of the Olt in the early third century, running from the Danube northward toward the Carpathians, a long earthen rampart with forts and watchtowers. The local name Reduta Tătarilor, the Tatars' redoubt, reflects a common habit in Romania of attributing old earthworks to the Tatars or other invaders, long after the Romans were forgotten. The site is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier of Dacia.
Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor. Next is Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis.
The Olt river rises in the Carpathians and runs south through Romania to the Danube, and in Roman times it was a boundary. The frontier here, called the Limes Alutanus after the Roman name for the river, ran along the Olt on its journey through the plains of Oltenia, and forts were placed at intervals to watch for raiders. Slăveni stands on that line, and the site on our list, a fort known as La Cetate, is beside a cemetery where the people who served there were buried. The nearby site of Romula, a Roman city that became a provincial capital, was a short distance away.
Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis, about halfway. Next is Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui.
Southern Romania is as flat as a table, and the Teleorman plain, through which the river Vedea flows towards the Danube, is wheat and sunflower country as far as the eye can see. The Romans pushed their frontier across this plain in the second century, building a long earthen rampart known as the Limes Transalutanus, east of the Olt river, with a ditch and a line of forts and towers behind it. Near Roșiorii de Vede, at Valea Urlui, one of these sites is part of the Roman frontier of Dacia listed by UNESCO. The rampart can still be traced in places as a low bank running through the fields, and on the ground you need a good eye, or a guide, to spot it. From the air it is much clearer.
Read the complete Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis comes up about 245 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 293 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor. Next is back through Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort, late in the day. Next is Corabia - Sucidava / Celei.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corabia - Sucidava / Celei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 389 km.
Corabia - Sucidava / Celei → Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort → Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor → Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roșiorii de Vede - Valea Urlui → back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor → back through Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort → Corabia - Sucidava / Celei is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.