CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 734 km round trip from Kolochava - roughly 18 h 04 in the saddle. The stops in between: Gorgany, Svydovets, Kuziy - Trybushany and Church of Saint Nicholas. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Ukraine into Romania - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 37 km this is Romania Maramures Wooden Churches Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Synevyr is the largest lake in the Ukrainian Carpathians, a deep, dark mountain lake at about a thousand metres, ringed by spruce forest and fed by springs. It sits in the Synevyr National Nature Park, in Zakarpattia, and the Darvaika forest to which the label refers is a part of the park's old beech woods, that UNESCO lists among the old beech woods of the Carpathians. The lake owes its name to a legend: a count named Shenborn had a daughter, Synya, who fell in love with a shepherd called Vyr, and when the count killed him, her tears made the lake, while the island in the middle is the shepherd's grave.
Read the complete Synevyr - Darvaika write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Synevyr - Darvaika is where the day begins. Next is Gorgany.
The Gorgany are the wildest part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, a range of sandstone peaks rising above dense forests in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. What makes them unusual are the gorgany themselves, the fields of loose stone blocks that cover the upper slopes and summits, formed by frost shattering the rock. Walking across them is slow and tiring, and the forests below, of spruce, beech and Swiss stone pine, are among the most pristine in Ukraine, with brown bears, wolves, lynx and red deer. The Gorgany nature reserve protects a part of this landscape.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gorgany comes up 43 km in. Next is Svydovets.
The Svydovets is a long, high ridge in the Ukrainian Carpathians, rising above the upper Tisza valley near the town of Rakhiv in Zakarpattia. Its southern and northern slopes hold some of the wildest primeval beech forest left in Europe, protected as part of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and included in the UNESCO site of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. Above the trees lie broad alpine meadows, the polonyna, where Hutsul shepherds traditionally drove their flocks each summer, with glacial lakes tucked below the ridge.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
85 km in you reach Svydovets. Next is Kuziy - Trybushany.
The river Tisza runs fast and green out of the Ukrainian Carpathians, and for many kilometres it forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian bank, the forests of Kuziy and Trybushany are among the primeval beech woods protected in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and listed by UNESCO as part of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. From the Romanian side, around Valea Vișeului, you look across the river at steep, wooded slopes where the trees have grown and died without interference for centuries.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kuziy - Trybushany, about halfway. Next is Church of Saint Nicholas.
Budești is one of the old villages of the Cosău valley in Maramureș, the far northern corner of Romania, where traditional life has survived longer than almost anywhere else in Europe. Its wooden church of St Nicholas, built in the seventeenth century, is a masterpiece of the local carpentry tradition: a dark timber body with a tall, steep shingled roof and a slender spire that seems to pierce the sky. Inside, the walls are covered with painted scenes from the Bible, and among the church's treasures is a coat of chain mail said to have belonged to Pintea the Brave, a legendary outlaw hero of the region. The church is one of eight in the UNESCO listing of the Wooden Churches of Maramureș.
Read the complete Church of Saint Nicholas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of Saint Nicholas sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kuziy - Trybushany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kuziy - Trybushany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kuziy - Trybushany comes up 213 km in. Next is back through Svydovets.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
255 km in you reach back through Svydovets. Next is back through Gorgany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Gorgany, late in the day. Next is Synevyr - Darvaika.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Synevyr - Darvaika write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 734 km.
Synevyr - Darvaika → Gorgany is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gorgany → Svydovets is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Svydovets → Kuziy - Trybushany is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kuziy - Trybushany → Church of Saint Nicholas is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church of Saint Nicholas → back through Kuziy - Trybushany is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kuziy - Trybushany → back through Svydovets is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Svydovets → back through Gorgany is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gorgany → Synevyr - Darvaika is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.