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.
307 km from Tvrdošín to Tvrdošín, about 5 h 27 of riding. On the way it passes Church of the Archangel Michael, Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less and back through Church of the Archangel Michael. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Slovakia into Poland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 64 km this is Polish Tatra Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Tvrdošín lies in Orava, the northernmost corner of Slovakia, where the Orava river has been dammed to form a long reservoir under the dark ridges of the Western Tatras and the Roháče. It is a border country, not far from Poland, and a place of wood, snow and sheep, where for centuries people built in timber. The town has a wooden church that stands among the oldest in Slovakia, the Church of All Saints, built in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century in Gothic style with a steep shingled roof, and its interior is painted with scenes in a folk style that moves between the grand and the endearing. It is one of the Wooden Churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathian Mountain Area, which UNESCO listed in 2008.
Read the complete Tvrdosin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tvrdošín is where the day begins. Next is Church of the Archangel Michael.
From the outside, the church in Dębno Podhalańskie looks like a sturdy wooden barn with a steep shingled roof and a squat tower, the kind of building you might ride past without a second glance. Step inside and the walls explode with colour: every surface covered in stencilled and painted patterns, animals, plants and geometric figures, dating back to around 1500, one of the best-preserved medieval painted interiors in Poland. The church, built of larch in the late fifteenth century, is part of the UNESCO listing of Wooden Churches of Southern Małopolska, a group of Gothic timber churches that show the skill of local carpenters who built without nails.
Read the complete Church of the Archangel Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of the Archangel Michael comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.
Hidden among the hills of the Beskid Sądecki, close to the Slovak border in southern Poland, the little wooden church at Powroźnik is one of the oldest of its kind still standing in the country. Its oldest parts date from around 1600, and it belongs to the group of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. A tserkva is an Eastern-rite church, and this one was built by the Lemkos, the Rusyn highlanders who farmed these valleys for centuries until most were forcibly resettled after the Second World War. Today it serves as a Catholic church, but the shape tells its origin story at once: a tower with a bulging onion-like cap, stepped shingle roofs and dark timber walls weathered almost black.
Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 153 km into the recorded legs you reach Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less. Next is back through Church of the Archangel Michael.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of the Archangel Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church of the Archangel Michael, late in the day. Next is Tvrdosin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tvrdosin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tvrdosin. That is the ride.
Tvrdošín → Church of the Archangel Michael is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of the Archangel Michael → Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less → back through Church of the Archangel Michael is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Church of the Archangel Michael → Tvrdosin is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.