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.
A 689 km round trip from Plugova - roughly 11 h 53 in the saddle. The stops in between: Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei, Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne, Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu and Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Cerna valley in south-western Romania has been a corridor for armies and travellers since antiquity. Between the Banat mountains and the Mehedinți plateau, the valley carried the Roman road from the Danube crossing at Drobeta northwards toward Tibiscum and the heart of Dacia. At Mehadia, the Romans built a fort known as Ad Mediam, and the remains called Praetorium or Zidină, meaning ruined walls, mark the site. The stone foundations are visible in places, and the site is one of the components of the Roman frontier in Dacia proposed for World Heritage status.
Read the complete Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină is where the day begins. Next is Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei.
The Cerna is a mountain river in south-western Romania, flowing through a long, deep valley between the Mehedinți and Cerna mountains before reaching the old spa town of Băile Herculane. The Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park protects this valley and the mountains around it, a landscape of limestone cliffs, gorges, caves and some of the largest old-growth beech forests in Europe, part of the UNESCO site for the ancient and primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe.
Read the complete Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei comes up about 83 km into the recorded legs. Next is Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne.
The Cerna valley in southwestern Romania is a deep limestone gorge between the Mehedinți and Cerna mountains, with cliffs, caves and forests rising steeply on both sides. The Domogled–Valea Cernei National Park protects this wild landscape, and its beech forests, some of them untouched for centuries, became part of the UNESCO listing of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe in 2017. The park is also home to a rare variety of black pine that grows on the steep limestone slopes, and to bears, wolves, lynx and chamois, as well as horned vipers and a remarkable variety of butterflies.
Read the complete Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 169 km into the recorded legs you reach Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne. Next is Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu.
After conquering Dacia in AD 106, the emperor Trajan founded a new capital for the province in the Hațeg basin, and named it Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, borrowing the name of the Dacian royal capital in the Orăștie mountains to the north-east. The city grew into a prosperous centre, with a forum, temples, baths, and an amphitheatre that could seat thousands, and its ruins, partly excavated, lie in fields beside the modern village of Sarmizegetusa. The site has a museum, and you can walk around the forum and the amphitheatre, imagining the gladiatorial games that once filled it.
Read the complete Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu, about halfway. Next is Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2.
On a hill above the Strei valley near the village of Pui, in south-western Transylvania, faint earthworks mark one of the many small Roman military posts that guarded the province of Dacia after Trajan conquered it in AD 106. The Romans held Dacia for about a hundred and seventy years, and they ringed it with forts, watchtowers and roads; in 2024 a long series of these sites was added to the World Heritage list as the Frontiers of the Roman Empire in Dacia. At Dealul Robului there is nothing grand to see, just the shape of the ground under grass and trees, but the position tells you everything: a clear view down the valley, which was one of the routes into the heart of the province.
Read the complete Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2 sits at 346 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu comes up about 432 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 522 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne. Next is back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei, late in the day. Next is Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 689 km.
Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină → Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei → Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne → Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu → Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2 is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pui - Dealul Robului 1 and 2 → back through Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sarmizegetusa - Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augu → back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne is 91 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Ciucevele Cerne → back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Domogled - Valea Cernei - Iauna Craiovei → Mehadia - Praetorium / Zidină is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.