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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
It goes by way of Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan, Stuzhytsia - Uzhok, Havešová Primeval Forest and back through Stuzhytsia - Uzhok. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 30 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Matkiv is a small village in the upper valley of the Stryi river, in the Turka district of the Lviv region, high in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Its wooden church, the tserkva of the Synaxis of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built in the first half of the nineteenth century, and it is a fine example of the Boyko tradition, named after the highland people who have lived in these mountains for centuries. The church has three log frames topped by tiered pyramidal roofs, each level slightly smaller than the one below, and the whole building is covered in wooden shingles that have weathered to a silver grey. It is part of the UNESCO listing of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine.
Read the complete Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless is where the day begins. Next is Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Just below the pass that carries the road and railway from Uzhhorod into Galicia, the village of Uzhok keeps one of the finest wooden churches of the Carpathians. The tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael was built in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Boyko style, with three log chambers each topped by a tiered roof, rising in stages like a set of stacked hats, all covered in wooden shingles. It stands on a slope among old trees, with a separate bell tower nearby, and it is one of the sixteen wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine listed by UNESCO in 2013.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan comes up about 113 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stuzhytsia - Uzhok.
Where the Bieszczady mountains of Poland meet Slovakia and Ukraine, there is a stretch of forest that has hardly been touched. The Stuzhytsia-Uzhok area, on the Ukrainian side of the watershed near the Uzhok pass, is one component of the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians, a World Heritage group that spans several countries and continues into the Polish Bieszczady and the Slovak Poloniny. The trees here are mostly beech, with fir and sycamore, and in the oldest stands, some of the trunks are huge, with fallen logs lying where they dropped and rotting into the soil, a kind of forest that has almost vanished from Europe. The wildlife is what you might expect from such a place: brown bears, wolves, lynx, and the European bison, which was reintroduced to the Bieszczady in the 1960s.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach Stuzhytsia - Uzhok. Next is Havešová Primeval Forest.
In the far north-east of Slovakia, in the hills where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the beech forests have never been cut. Havešová is one of these primeval forests, a steep slope of giant beech trees, some over forty metres tall and hundreds of years old, with fallen trunks decaying slowly on the forest floor and new trees rising in the gaps. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, inscribed in 2007 and extended since, and it lies within Poloniny National Park, one of the least visited and most remote national parks in Central Europe.
Read the complete Havešová Primeval Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Havešová Primeval Forest, about halfway. Next is back through Stuzhytsia - Uzhok.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stuzhytsia - Uzhok write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stuzhytsia - Uzhok sits at 467 km, about halfway. Next is back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan comes up about 588 km into the recorded legs. Next is Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless closes the day.
Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless → Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 113 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is 125 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stuzhytsia - Uzhok → Havešová Primeval Forest is 113 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Havešová Primeval Forest → back through Stuzhytsia - Uzhok is 113 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stuzhytsia - Uzhok → back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 125 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → Matkiv-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Bless is 113 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.