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.
From Cucueți it runs 305 km to Cucueți; allow about 5 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Băneasa - La Cetate, Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis, Corabia - Sucidava / Celei and back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. It crosses from Romania into Bulgaria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Băneasa - La Cetate.
Băneasa is Teleorman, and Teleorman is flat. The Wallachian plain here spreads out between the Danube, to the south, and the lower Vedea valley, with big fields, long horizons and the sort of sky that makes motorcyclists look for any rise at all. The label "La Cetate" marks one such rise, where traces of an old fortification are known locally, and the nearby "Traian - La Culă" name hints at the Roman presence that once ran across this part of southern Romania.
Read the complete Băneasa - La Cetate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Băneasa - La Cetate comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 106 km into the recorded legs you reach Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. Next is Corabia - Sucidava / Celei.
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, 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 sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Băneasa - La Cetate.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Băneasa - La Cetate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Băneasa - La Cetate comes up about 271 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Gresia - La Biserică closes the day.
Gresia - La Biserică → Băneasa - La Cetate is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Băneasa - La Cetate → Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → Corabia - Sucidava / Celei is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corabia - Sucidava / Celei → back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → back through Băneasa - La Cetate is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Băneasa - La Cetate → Gresia - La Biserică is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.