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.
171 km from Crâmpoia to Crâmpoia, about 3 h 11 of riding. It goes by way of Gresia - La Biserică, Vallum - Troian, Traian - La Culă and back through Vallum - Troian. It crosses from Romania into Bulgaria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
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.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is where the day begins. Next is Gresia - La Biserică.
The Wallachian plain in southern Romania is about as flat as Europe gets: a vast expanse of wheat, maize and sunflower fields stretching to the horizon, broken only by lines of acacia trees, irrigation channels and villages strung along the road. Teleorman county, where Gresia lies, is in the heart of it. Two thousand years ago, this was frontier land. The Romans built a long earthwork rampart with forts and towers running north to south east of the river Olt, known as the Limes Transalutanus, to protect their province of Dacia. Gresia and the sites around it, including Roșiorii de Vede, Crâmpoia and Izbășești, lie along its line. Little survives above ground, and the remains need a trained eye or an archaeologist's map to spot, but the idea of a Roman frontier running through these fields adds depth to a landscape that can seem empty.
Read the complete Gresia - La Biserică write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gresia - La Biserică comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vallum - Troian.
The Romanian word vallum is a Latin leftover, and it means a rampart. Across the plain north of the Danube, in Teleorman county, a line of low earthworks stretches over the fields, and local people call it Troianul, Trajan's ditch, though no one is sure whether Trajan had anything to do with it. Folk memory has also attached the name of Novac, a legendary hero, to the same banks, and archaeologists suggest the line may have formed part of a Roman or late Roman defence of the Wallachian Plain, though the dating remains debated. What you will find on the ground is subtle: a long, shallow hump in a wheat field, a line of poplars following an old ditch.
Read the complete Vallum - Troian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 50 km into the recorded legs you reach Vallum - Troian. Next is Traian - La Culă.
Teleorman county is flat. It is the heart of the Romanian Plain, an open expanse of black soil that runs from the Carpathian foothills to the Danube, and from the saddle of a motorcycle it looks like a sea of sunflowers, wheat and maize under a very large sky. Traian, a small village a short ride from Turnu Magurele, sits in the middle of it. The label La Cula refers to a cula, the fortified tower house typical of the Balkans, and the name suggests a past with more upheaval than the quiet fields would suggest.
Read the complete Traian - La Culă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Traian - La Culă, about halfway. Next is back through Vallum - Troian.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vallum - Troian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vallum - Troian sits at 123 km, about halfway. Next is back through Gresia - La Biserică.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gresia - La Biserică write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gresia - La Biserică comes up about 149 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor closes the day.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor → Gresia - La Biserică is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gresia - La Biserică → Vallum - Troian is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vallum - Troian → Traian - La Culă is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Traian - La Culă → back through Vallum - Troian is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vallum - Troian → back through Gresia - La Biserică is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gresia - La Biserică → Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.