Mareș - La Stadion and Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
388 km
Riding-time estimate
7 h 20
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 Albota de Jos it runs 388 km to Albota de Jos; allow about 7 h 20 of riding. It goes by way of Afrimești - Urluieni, Gresia - La Biserică, Băneasa - La Cetate and Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Mareș - La Stadion
Pitești is the kind of city most riders pass through on the way somewhere else, and the somewhere else is usually the Transfăgărășan. The famous road over the Făgăraș mountains begins north of here, beyond Curtea de Argeș, and the hills of Argeș county around Albota and Mareș, just south-west of Pitești, are where many people start the day.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Mareș - La Stadion is where the day begins. Next is Afrimești - Urluieni.
2. Afrimești - Urluieni
Flat. That is the first impression of this part of southern Romania, in Argeș county, where the land stretches away towards the Danube in wide fields of maize and sunflowers, broken only by lines of trees and small villages. But across this plain, in the second century AD, the Romans built a frontier: the Limes Transalutanus, a line of earthworks and forts running north to south east of the Olt river, protecting the province of Dacia. At Urluieni, near the village of Afrimești, stood one of its forts.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Afrimești - Urluieni comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gresia - La Biserică.
3. Gresia - La Biserică
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Gresia - La Biserică. Next is Băneasa - La Cetate.
4. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Băneasa - La Cetate, about halfway. Next is Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis.
5. 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.