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.
From Petrila it runs 540 km to Petrila; allow about 9 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Vârful lui Pătru, Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia, Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea and back through Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 29 km this is Romania Transalpina, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
North of the Jiu Valley, the land rises steeply into the Șureanu and Parâng mountains, a wild region of high ridges, deep valleys, spruce forests and alpine meadows. Crac-Găuri lies up in this high country, linked by name to the old routes that crossed the mountains in Roman times, when Dacia was a province and soldiers watched the passes between the Transylvanian basin and the south. Little is visible today, and the remoteness is half the attraction: this is mountain land, where shepherds bring their flocks to high pastures in summer and the forest stretches for miles.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is where the day begins. Next is Vârful lui Pătru.
Roman soldiers rarely chose to live above two thousand metres, but on Vârful lui Pătru, a broad grassy summit of the Șureanu mountains in southern Transylvania, they did. A small fortification on the top, part of the network that watched over the passes after Trajan conquered Dacia, is often described as one of the highest Roman military posts anywhere, and it now belongs to the World Heritage listing of the Dacian frontier. Imagine a winter up here in a wool cloak, with the wind coming straight off the Carpathians, and the posting suddenly sounds like a punishment.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vârful lui Pătru comes up about 100 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia.
Sarmizegetusa Regia was the capital of the Dacian kings, built high in the Orăștie mountains in the first century BC and the first century AD, and it is one of the most atmospheric ruins in Europe. A fortress of stone blocks, a sacred precinct of circular and rectangular temples, and terraces for houses and workshops were laid out on a series of platforms among beech forest, at an altitude of around 1,200 metres. The sanctuary is the star, with rings of stone bases and wooden posts, and a large circular platform of andesite stones that may have worked as a calendar or a place for ritual. Cut stones and finely made tiles show Greek and Roman influence.
Read the complete Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 187 km into the recorded legs you reach Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia. Next is Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea.
High above the Sebeș and Cugir valleys, where the Șureanu foothills fold into long grassy shoulders, the Romans kept watch over the southern approaches to their province of Dacia. The name on the map, Muncelu-Lăutaorea, belongs to the ridge country above Pianu de Jos, and it is one of the many small frontier points that archaeologists have tied to the Roman defensive system here. Do not expect walls to lean on. What survives on these hilltops is usually a faint platform, a ditch you notice only when the light is low, and a view that explains everything about why a sentry was posted there.
Read the complete Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea, about halfway. Next is back through Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia sits at 360 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vârful lui Pătru.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vârful lui Pătru write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vârful lui Pătru comes up about 440 km into the recorded legs. Next is Voineasa - Crac-Găuri.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voineasa - Crac-Găuri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri closes the day.
Voineasa - Crac-Găuri → Vârful lui Pătru is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vârful lui Pătru → Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia → Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pianu de Jos - Muncelu-Lăutaorea → back through Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grădiștea de Munte - Sarmizegetusa Regia → back through Vârful lui Pătru is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vârful lui Pătru → Voineasa - Crac-Găuri is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.