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 257 km to Cucueți; allow about 4 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Traian - La Culă, Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis and back through Traian - La Culă. It crosses from Romania into Bulgaria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 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 comes up about 63 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 129 km into the recorded legs you reach Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. Next is back through Traian - La Culă.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Traian - La Culă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Traian - La Culă, late in the day. 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.
Back at Gresia - La Biserică. That is the ride.
Gresia - La Biserică → Traian - La Culă is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Traian - La Culă → Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → back through Traian - La Culă is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Traian - La Culă → Gresia - La Biserică is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.