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.
501 km from Orăştioara de Sus to Orăştioara de Sus, about 13 h 03 of riding. The stops in between: Vârful lui Pătru, Voineasa - Crac-Găuri, Monastery of Horezu and back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 55 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.
Grădiștea de Munte is where the Dacian capital stood, and the hills around it hold the remains of Sarmizegetusa Regia, the mountain city that Decebalus ruled from about AD 87 until the Roman legions broke it in 106. The site lies high in the Șureanu mountains, around twelve hundred metres up, on a series of man-made terraces cut into the slope. The most striking remains are the sacred zone, with circular sanctuaries of stone and wood pillars and a large round altar of andesite, often called the sun disc, which may have served as a calendar or a place of sacrifice. Whatever it was, it is a place with presence, set among dark conifers and mountain meadows.
Read the complete Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 122 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 177 km into the recorded legs you reach Voineasa - Crac-Găuri. 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, 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 143 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vârful lui Pătru.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vârful lui Pătru comes up about 378 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel closes the day.
Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel → Vârful lui Pătru is 122 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vârful lui Pătru → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Monastery of Horezu is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery of Horezu → back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → back through Vârful lui Pătru is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vârful lui Pătru → Grădiștea de Munte - Muncel is 124 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.