Motorcycle routes · The DN 18, at Ciocănești
The quiet loop: the DN 17 to Vatra Dornei, then the DN 18 up the Bistrița Aurie, to the village where every house is painted like an Easter egg.
Start and finish: Câmpulung Moldovenesc
It isn't the loop for bends: it has 1.8 per kilometre, three times fewer than the Rarău one. It's the loop where you switch the engine off and walk. Ciocănești has been a museum-commune since 2004: over 600 houses have their outside walls painted with the same motifs put on painted eggs and on waistcoats. You get there on the DN 17 to Vatra Dornei, then the DN 18 up the Bistrița Aurie, through Iacobeni. 131 kilometres out and back, three and a half hours of riding, but reckon on a day: the village is seen slowly.
Daylight · The DN 18, at Ciocănești · today,
The times are for the starting point. Between ridges the light goes earlier than the clock says, so turn back a good hour before sunset.
Weather · The DN 18, at Ciocănești · today,
The forecast is for where you set off. Up on the ridge, count on a few degrees less and on wind you cannot see from below.
The kilometres and times are measured on the map, from the gate of the house. The time is what you actually ride: with photo and coffee stops, add half again.
See the whole route on the map All 7 points of the loop, in order, opened straight in Google Maps. From there you can start the navigation or send it to your phone.| Câmpulung Moldovenesc → Mestecăniș pass | 21.4 km · 35 min The DN 17 west, a long climb with open bends. The first bends of the day, and the most of them. |
|---|---|
| Mestecăniș pass → Vatra Dornei | 19.9 km · 33 min The drop towards Dorna, on the same national road. |
| Vatra Dornei → Iacobeni | 11 km · 17 min This is where you turn right onto the DN 18, the road that carries on to the Prislop pass. |
| Iacobeni → Ciocănești | 13.2 km · 24 min Up the Bistrița Aurie, with the river on your left. The last kilometres, among the first painted houses. |
| Ciocănești → Vatra Dornei | 24.1 km · 41 min Back the same way. |
| Vatra Dornei → Câmpulung Moldovenesc | 41.2 km · 68 min The DN 17 back over Mestecăniș. |
We counted every bend on the route. Not the gentle waves of the road, but the real turns: where the road changes direction by more than 12 degrees, which is enough to feel the bars move. Then we split the loop into two-kilometre pieces and gave each piece its number of bends. That's what the chart below shows: the taller the bar, the twistier that stretch is.
Twistiest: kilometres 18–20 30 bends in two kilometres, that is one every 67 metres.
National road, wide bends, through traffic including lorries.
Upgraded. A rider who came through in 2023 describes it as being in excellent condition, with lay-bys and viewpoints built along the way. Older accounts, from 2014, spoke of potholes; work has been done since.
Tarmac changes from one year to the next. Above is what we know now. Before you go, ask us.
These are the pumps mapped in the villages and towns along the route. They close, they move: in the mountains, don't count on just one.
The things that come from the road itself: how narrow it is, how steep, what it passes through. How often they happen is our own judgement, not statistics.
The village is the destination, not the road. Visitors walk along the edge of the carriageway to photograph the houses, sometimes with their backs to the traffic. Slow down from the first house.
Ciocănești and Botoș stretch along both banks of the Bistrița, over sixteen kilometres of road. There's a 50 limit the whole way, and rightly so: there are yards, children and animals.
At the start of March, for the National Painted Egg Festival, and on 15 August, for the Trout Festival and the Rafting Feast, the village fills up. Fine to see, hard to park.
The valley holds fog until late, especially in spring and autumn.
Oddly, it's a risk: 1.8 bends per kilometre means long straight stretches on the DN 17, where attention drops. Take breaks even if you don't feel you need to.
Over 600 painted houses along sixteen kilometres. The light is good early and late; at midday the sun washes the colours out. These are people's homes, not a ticketed museum: from the road you can shoot freely, and if you want to step into a yard, a „good afternoon” opens more gates than you'd think.
The first painted house in the village, from 1950. Everything started here.
The river runs beside the road through the whole village. The bridges give the best shots, with houses on one bank and mountain on the other.
Built when the road was upgraded, with parking. The only places where you can stop safely on the stretch between Iacobeni and the village.
a Bistro or Brasserie, before you set off.
Kaban, 43 minutes from the house. The last town on the route.
Trout, at the source. The village holds a national trout festival on 15 August; the rest of the year you'll find it in the guesthouses and places to eat.
Restaurant Mestecăniș, on the way back, 24 minutes from the house.
Taste Bucovina
Ciocănești holds a national trout festival on 15 August. The rest of the year you'll find it in the guesthouses and eating places in the village. There's also a place called „Zur deutschen Eiche”. Ask at any gate where the trout is good: they'll tell you.
You won't find a workshop that works on motorcycles alone on any of these roads. The nearest is in Suceava, some seventy kilometres from the house and further from most of the loops. What you will find are car workshops and tyre places in the villages and towns, and plenty of them will turn a hand to a motorcycle. For a puncture, a battery or a tyre, they'll sort you out. For the engine, call first.
Call ahead. They keep their own hours and not all of them work on Saturdays.
We checked all of this in . We measured the kilometres on the map ourselves; the fuel stations and workshops are the mapped ones.
The other loops
A base for the loops
Parking in the yard and the whole house to yourselves. Leave at sunrise without waking a reception desk, and come back as late as you like.
Via Transilvanica