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 Negrilești it runs 343 km to Negrilești; allow about 7 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Salva - Dealul Dumbravă, Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1, Brâncovenești - Castel and Eremitu - Dealul Tompa. The line favours views over speed.
Bram Stoker never came to Transylvania, but he sent Jonathan Harker through Bistrița, and the town still enjoys the connection. Dealul Muncelului, a hill above the village of Negrilești, sits west of Bistrița in the Someș valley, and from here the road east leads through the Saxon town to the Tihuța pass, the Borgo Pass of the novel, where Count Dracula's carriage is supposed to have met his English visitor. It is a fine excuse for a ride, even if the vampire is fiction and the real history more interesting.
Read the complete Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului is where the day begins. Next is Salva - Dealul Dumbravă.
The Someșul Mare valley around Năsăud was a frontier long before the Habsburgs made it one again. The Romans built watchtowers on the hills here to guard the northern edge of Dacia, and Salva - Dealul Dumbravă, the hill of the oak grove near the village of Salva, is one of the sites included in the UNESCO listing of the Dacian frontier in 2024. Sixteen centuries later, the Habsburg empire turned the region into a military border district, and the Năsăud border regiment, made up of local Romanian peasants, guarded the Carpathian passes in return for privileges and education.
Read the complete Salva - Dealul Dumbravă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salva - Dealul Dumbravă comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1.
Bram Stoker sent Jonathan Harker to Bistritz, and the town of Bistrița, just a few kilometres from here, has never quite escaped the vampire. In the novel, Harker spends a night at the Golden Krone hotel before setting off towards the Borgo Pass and Count Dracula's castle, and today the town has a hotel of that name and the pass a hotel built to look like a castle. The real history is more interesting. Bistrița was one of the seven Saxon cities that gave Transylvania its German name, Siebenbürgen, a rich trading town with a big Gothic church, arcaded merchants' houses and a ring of walls, much of which has been lost.
Read the complete Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1. Next is Brâncovenești - Castel.
Upstream from Reghin, where the Mureș leaves the mountains and widens into the Transylvanian hill country, the village of Brâncovenești stands beside a castle with round corner towers and a long, plain facade overlooking the river. Known in Hungarian as Marosvécs, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries, and in the twentieth century it belonged to the Kemény family. Between the two world wars, Baron János Kemény opened its doors to a circle of Hungarian writers from Transylvania, the Helikon group, who met here every summer to read, debate and plan their literary work. Those gatherings made a remote country house one of the liveliest literary addresses in the region for almost two decades.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brâncovenești - Castel, about halfway. Next is Eremitu - Dealul Tompa.
You are in Szekler country here, in the hills between the Niraj valley and the foot of the Gurghiu and Harghita mountains, a part of Transylvania where most villages have two names and the Hungarian one, Nyárádremete for Eremitu, is the one people use. Dealul Tompa means the blunt hill, and it matches the landscape: rounded, grassy and farmed, with beech woods on the higher ground and a patchwork of hay meadows below.
Read the complete Eremitu - Dealul Tompa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eremitu - Dealul Tompa sits at 151 km, about halfway. Next is back through Brâncovenești - Castel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brâncovenești - Castel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel comes up about 213 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 259 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1. Next is back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Salva - Dealul Dumbravă write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă, late in the day. Next is Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 343 km.
Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului → Salva - Dealul Dumbravă is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salva - Dealul Dumbravă → Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → Brâncovenești - Castel is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brâncovenești - Castel → Eremitu - Dealul Tompa is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eremitu - Dealul Tompa → back through Brâncovenești - Castel is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Brâncovenești - Castel → back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Budacu de Jos - Dealul Cetății 1 → back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Salva - Dealul Dumbravă → Negrilești - Dealul Muncelului is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.