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.
207 km from Bochnia to Bochnia, about 3 h 45 of riding. It goes by way of Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi, Historic Centre of Kraków and back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is Polish Eagles Nests Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
People were mining salt at Bochnia by the middle of the thirteenth century, which makes it the oldest salt mine in Poland and one of the oldest in Europe still open to visitors. For centuries the salt from here and from Wieliczka, about twenty-five kilometres to the west, filled the coffers of the Polish kings; at times it accounted for a remarkable share of the royal income. Together the two mines and the royal castle at Wieliczka form a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Read the complete Salt Mine in Bochnia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salt Mine in Bochnia is where the day begins. Next is Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines.
Under the town of Wieliczka, at the southern edge of the Krakow suburbs, lies a labyrinth of tunnels, chambers and lakes cut out of salt, nine levels deep, with the lowest more than three hundred metres below the surface. Salt has been mined here since the thirteenth century, and the mine, together with the one at Bochnia some twenty kilometres east, was one of the first sites placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1978. Wieliczka has nearly nineteen thousand people, and the mine entrance is about a kilometre from the centre.
Read the complete Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
In 1600, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, a Polish nobleman, began to build a chapel on a hill south-west of Kraków, modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Over the following decades, he and his descendants added dozens of chapels and churches spread over the hills, laid out to recreate the Passion of Christ and the life of the Virgin, with the landscape itself standing in for Jerusalem. The result, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi. Next is Historic Centre of Kraków.
Every hour, a trumpeter plays a short melody from the taller tower of St Mary's Basilica on Kraków's market square, and every time the tune breaks off abruptly mid-phrase. Legend says it commemorates a watchman shot by a Tatar arrow in the throat as he sounded the alarm in the thirteenth century, and the hejnał has been played that way ever since, broadcast daily on Polish radio at noon. It is a fitting introduction to a city that wears its history so openly. The Rynek Główny, the main square, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, with the Renaissance Cloth Hall in the middle, and the historic centre, including Wawel Hill and the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, was among the first sites ever placed on the UNESCO list in 1978.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Kraków write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Kraków, about halfway. Next is back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi sits at 152 km, about halfway. Next is back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines comes up about 179 km into the recorded legs. Next is Salt Mine in Bochnia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Salt Mine in Bochnia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salt Mine in Bochnia closes the day.
Salt Mine in Bochnia → Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines → Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → Historic Centre of Kraków is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Kraków → back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the Mannerist Archi → back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines → Salt Mine in Bochnia is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.