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.
332 km from Drohobych to Drohobych, about 7 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless, Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan, Stuzhytsia - Uzhok and back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Ukraine into Poland - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 29 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bruno Schulz was born in Drohobych in 1892, spent most of his life here and was shot in its streets by a German officer in 1942. The writer and painter, whose strange, dreamlike stories turned this small Galician town into a place of myth, drew on the old market square, the narrow lanes and the attic rooms of a Jewish merchant family, and the town today is part of his legacy. Drohobych, with a population of nearly eighty thousand, grew rich on salt and oil, and the oil wells of nearby Boryslav gave the region the nickname of Galicia's Texas in the late nineteenth century. Ivan Franko, the great Ukrainian writer, went to school here.
Read the complete Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t is where the day begins. Next is Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless.
Matkiv is a small village in the upper valley of the Stryi river, in the Turka district of the Lviv region, high in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Its wooden church, the tserkva of the Synaxis of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built in the first half of the nineteenth century, and it is a fine example of the Boyko tradition, named after the highland people who have lived in these mountains for centuries. The church has three log frames topped by tiered pyramidal roofs, each level slightly smaller than the one below, and the whole building is covered in wooden shingles that have weathered to a silver grey. It is part of the UNESCO listing of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine.
Read the complete Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Just below the pass that carries the road and railway from Uzhhorod into Galicia, the village of Uzhok keeps one of the finest wooden churches of the Carpathians. The tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael was built in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Boyko style, with three log chambers each topped by a tiered roof, rising in stages like a set of stacked hats, all covered in wooden shingles. It stands on a slope among old trees, with a separate bell tower nearby, and it is one of the sixteen wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine listed by UNESCO in 2013.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 137 km into the recorded legs you reach Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan. Next is Stuzhytsia - Uzhok.
Where the Bieszczady mountains of Poland meet Slovakia and Ukraine, there is a stretch of forest that has hardly been touched. The Stuzhytsia-Uzhok area, on the Ukrainian side of the watershed near the Uzhok pass, is one component of the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians, a World Heritage group that spans several countries and continues into the Polish Bieszczady and the Slovak Poloniny. The trees here are mostly beech, with fir and sycamore, and in the oldest stands, some of the trunks are huge, with fallen logs lying where they dropped and rotting into the soil, a kind of forest that has almost vanished from Europe. The wildlife is what you might expect from such a place: brown bears, wolves, lynx, and the European bison, which was reintroduced to the Bieszczady in the 1960s.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok, about halfway. Next is back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless comes up about 236 km into the recorded legs. Next is Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t closes the day.
Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t → Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless → Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok → back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → back through Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless → Drohobych-Tserkva of Saint George\t is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.