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.
A 426 km round trip from Brezoi - roughly 13 h 11 in the saddle. The stops in between: Monastery of Horezu, Voineasa - Crac-Găuri, Vârful lui Pătru and back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. 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 54 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The Olt is one of the few rivers in Romania that cut straight through the Carpathians instead of going around them, and one of the places where it does it is the foot of the Cozia massif. A narrow gorge, a few kilometres long, runs between steep wooded walls, with the river dark and fast at the bottom, a railway and a road squeezed in beside it, and the ridge of Cozia towering on one side. The mountain itself is a rounded, forested block of crystalline rock, high enough to hold snow into spring, and much of it is protected as a national park, with beech, fir and oak, chamois on the high crags, bears in the forest and a good scattering of rare plants.
Read the complete Cozia - Masivul Cozia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cozia - Masivul Cozia is where the day begins. 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.
Monastery of Horezu comes up about 86 km into the recorded legs. Next is Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
North of the Jiu Valley, the land rises steeply into the Șureanu and Parâng mountains, a wild region of high ridges, deep valleys, spruce forests and alpine meadows. Crac-Găuri lies up in this high country, linked by name to the old routes that crossed the mountains in Roman times, when Dacia was a province and soldiers watched the passes between the Transylvanian basin and the south. Little is visible today, and the remoteness is half the attraction: this is mountain land, where shepherds bring their flocks to high pastures in summer and the forest stretches for miles.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. Next is Vârful lui Pătru.
Roman soldiers rarely chose to live above two thousand metres, but on Vârful lui Pătru, a broad grassy summit of the Șureanu mountains in southern Transylvania, they did. A small fortification on the top, part of the network that watched over the passes after Trajan conquered Dacia, is often described as one of the highest Roman military posts anywhere, and it now belongs to the World Heritage listing of the Dacian frontier. Imagine a winter up here in a wool cloak, with the wind coming straight off the Carpathians, and the posting suddenly sounds like a punishment.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vârful lui Pătru, about halfway. Next is back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri sits at 161 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Monastery of Horezu comes up about 342 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cozia - Masivul Cozia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cozia - Masivul Cozia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cozia - Masivul Cozia closes the day.
Cozia - Masivul Cozia → Monastery of Horezu is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery of Horezu → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Vârful lui Pătru is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vârful lui Pătru → back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → back through Monastery of Horezu is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastery of Horezu → Cozia - Masivul Cozia is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.