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 755 km round trip from Cisna - roughly 13 h 02 in the saddle. On the way it passes Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley, Ruská Bystrá, Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy and Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan. It crosses Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine - 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 about 35 km this is Bieszczady Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Udava is where the day begins. Next is Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley.
The Bieszczady are the wildest mountains in Poland, a corner where the country meets Ukraine and Slovakia and the forest has had decades to reclaim the land. The border ridge, running along the frontier, and the valley of the upper Solinka, below it, are part of the Polish section of the Carpathian primeval beech forests, protected within Bieszczady National Park. There are no roads up here: the ridge is reached on foot, and the forest, with its old beeches, fir and sycamore, is home to wolves, lynx, brown bears, and the European bison that were reintroduced to the area.
Read the complete Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley comes up about 84 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ruská Bystrá.
Hidden in a fold of the Vihorlat hills near the Ukrainian border, the little village of Ruská Bystrá has a wooden church built in the early eighteenth century, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, with a tower and a roof of wooden shingles and an iconostasis of painted icons inside. It is one of the Greek Catholic churches included in the World Heritage listing of the Wooden Churches of the Slovak Part of the Carpathian Mountain Area, inscribed in 2008, along with Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches across the country.
Read the complete Ruská Bystrá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 193 km into the recorded legs you reach Ruská Bystrá. Next is Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy.
At the very eastern tip of Slovakia, where the borders of Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet on the summit of Kremenec, lies a forest that has been left to itself for longer than anyone remembers. Stužica, in the Poloniny National Park, is one of the most valuable fragments of primeval beech forest in Europe, with trees several hundred years old, fallen trunks rotting slowly on the ground, and an extraordinary richness of fungi, insects and birds. It is part of the UNESCO site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a transnational listing that started with forests in Slovakia and Ukraine.
Read the complete Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy, about halfway. Next is Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan.
Just below the pass that carries the road and railway from Uzhhorod into Galicia, the village of Uzhok keeps one of the finest wooden churches of the Carpathians. The tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael was built in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Boyko style, with three log chambers each topped by a tiered roof, rising in stages like a set of stacked hats, all covered in wooden shingles. It stands on a slope among old trees, with a separate bell tower nearby, and it is one of the sixteen wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine listed by UNESCO in 2013.
Read the complete Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan sits at 379 km, about halfway. Next is back through Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy comes up about 466 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Ruská Bystrá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ruská Bystrá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 564 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Ruská Bystrá. Next is back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley, late in the day. Next is Udava.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Udava write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 755 km.
Udava → Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → Ruská Bystrá is 109 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ruská Bystrá → Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy is 99 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy → Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uzhok-Tserkva of the Synaxis of the Archan → back through Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stužica - Bukovské Vrchy → back through Ruská Bystrá is 99 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ruská Bystrá → back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley is 109 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Border Ridge and Gorna Solinka valley → Udava is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.