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.
A 421 km round trip from Mârţeşti - roughly 8 h 12 in the saddle. The stops in between: Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor, Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis, Vallum - Troian and Traian - La Culă. It crosses from Romania into Bulgaria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
South of the Carpathians, where the Wallachian plain starts to lift into hills, there is a quiet stretch of the Argeș county, and this point lies near Lunca Corbului, in a landscape of low ridges, orchards and wide fields. The name Cetate simply means fortress or citadel in Romanian, and the label suggests a place where an old defensive site was recorded, whether Roman or older.
Read the complete Mârțești - Cetate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mârțești - Cetate is where the day begins. Next is Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.
Out on the flat Romanian plain east of the Olt river, the village of Crâmpoia sits among endless fields of wheat, maize and sunflowers, and its name has a place in Roman history. A Roman earthen fort near the village stood on the Limes Transalutanus, the frontier line that the Romans built east of the Olt in the early third century, running from the Danube northward toward the Carpathians, a long earthen rampart with forts and watchtowers. The local name Reduta Tătarilor, the Tatars' redoubt, reflects a common habit in Romania of attributing old earthworks to the Tatars or other invaders, long after the Romans were forgotten. The site is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier of Dacia.
Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor comes up about 61 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 109 km into the recorded legs you reach Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. Next is Vallum - Troian.
The Romanian word vallum is a Latin leftover, and it means a rampart. Across the plain north of the Danube, in Teleorman county, a line of low earthworks stretches over the fields, and local people call it Troianul, Trajan's ditch, though no one is sure whether Trajan had anything to do with it. Folk memory has also attached the name of Novac, a legendary hero, to the same banks, and archaeologists suggest the line may have formed part of a Roman or late Roman defence of the Wallachian Plain, though the dating remains debated. What you will find on the ground is subtle: a long, shallow hump in a wheat field, a line of poplars following an old ditch.
Read the complete Vallum - Troian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vallum - Troian, about halfway. 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 sits at 185 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vallum - Troian.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vallum - Troian write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vallum - Troian comes up about 245 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 310 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis. Next is back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor, late in the day. Next is Mârțești - Cetate.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mârțești - Cetate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 421 km.
Mârțești - Cetate → Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor → Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → Vallum - Troian is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vallum - Troian → Traian - La Culă is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Traian - La Culă → back through Vallum - Troian is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vallum - Troian → back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Slăveni - La Cetate - necropolis → back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor → Mârțești - Cetate is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.