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 Kraków it runs 324 km to Kraków; allow about 5 h 51 of riding. On the way it passes Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi, Auschwitz, Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and and back through Auschwitz. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is Polish Eagles Nests Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Every hour, a trumpeter plays a short melody from the taller tower of St Mary's Basilica on Kraków's market square, and every time the tune breaks off abruptly mid-phrase. Legend says it commemorates a watchman shot by a Tatar arrow in the throat as he sounded the alarm in the thirteenth century, and the hejnał has been played that way ever since, broadcast daily on Polish radio at noon. It is a fitting introduction to a city that wears its history so openly. The Rynek Główny, the main square, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, with the Renaissance Cloth Hall in the middle, and the historic centre, including Wawel Hill and the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, was among the first sites ever placed on the UNESCO list in 1978.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Kraków write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Kraków is where the day begins. Next is Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
In 1600, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, a Polish nobleman, began to build a chapel on a hill south-west of Kraków, modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Over the following decades, he and his descendants added dozens of chapels and churches spread over the hills, laid out to recreate the Passion of Christ and the life of the Virgin, with the landscape itself standing in for Jerusalem. The result, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Auschwitz.
This is a stop to make in silence. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camps, built in occupied Poland on the edge of the town of Oświęcim, and between 1940 and 1945 around 1.1 million people were murdered here, the vast majority of them Jews from across Europe, along with Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others. The memorial and museum, which includes the original camp, Auschwitz I, and the vast camp at Birkenau, Auschwitz II, about three kilometres away, was listed by UNESCO in 1979 as a reminder of the cruelty of humanity.
Read the complete Auschwitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 85 km into the recorded legs you reach Auschwitz. Next is Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and.
Upper Silesia is Poland's industrial heart, a densely built region of coal mines, steelworks, spoil heaps and tidy brick housing, and at its northern edge lies Tarnowskie Gory, a town of about sixty thousand people that grew up around silver, lead and zinc. The mine and its underground water system were inscribed by UNESCO in 2017, and the town's historic centre is about a kilometre from the entrance. Katowice, the regional capital, is some thirty kilometres to the south-east.
Read the complete Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and, about halfway. Next is back through Auschwitz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Auschwitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Auschwitz sits at 215 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi comes up about 287 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Kraków.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Kraków write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Kraków closes the day.
Historic Centre of Kraków → Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → Auschwitz is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Auschwitz → Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and → back through Auschwitz is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Auschwitz → back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → Historic Centre of Kraków is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.