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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Dniesterradweg / Dniester Bicycle Route

The other day, I was reading about the Danube Cycle Trail (to German speakers better known as Donauradweg), and I got this crazy urge to develop a similar bicycle route along the Dniester River (also spelled Dniestr, Dnister, Dnestr, Dnjestr, or Nistru) from the Carpathian Mountains through western and south-western Ukraine and Moldova all the way to the Black Sea (about 1,400 km / 870 miles).


Even though I admit that it's just a crazy idea that popped up in my head, there is some rationale behind the Dniester Bike Route:
  • Both the north-western trailhead (the Dniester River source) and the south-eastern trailhead (the Dniester River estuary) are easily accessible;
    • the route starts (assuming that it will be ridden mostly following the river flow although it does not have to be that way) close to the eastern border of the European Union (primarily Poland, but Slovakia is not that far away either; see this page for more info on crossing the Poland-Ukraine and Slovakia-Ukraine borders in the area);
    • the route runs not far from where EuroVelo route #4 crosses the Poland-Ukraine border (at the Medyka-Shehyni check point that is only 52 km/32 mi from the town of Sambir located on the proposed route);
    • the northwestern section of the route is easily accessible from the city of Lviv (Lvov, Lwów, Lemberg), a major tourist center with an international airport (see the schedule of flights to/from Lviv) and train station (check out the site of Deutsche Bahn to figure out ways to get there from pretty much anywhere in Europe by train; in the query form, type in "Lemberg(UA)" instead of "Lviv");
    • in addition to the fact that the route ends (again, assuming that it will be ridden following the river flow) at the Black Sea, which is a worthy destination in itself, it ends not far from the city of Odesa (Odessa), also a major tourist center that has large international airport, sea port and train station;
    • crossing into Romania may be an option, e.g. at the southernmost Romania-Moldova checkpoint Galati-Giurgiulesti on the Danube River;
    • there used to be scheduled ferries between Odesa and Constanţa, Romania (connection to EuroVelo route #6), Varna, Bulgaria (possible connection to EuroVelo route #13), and Istanbul, Tukey, but I am not sure they still operate on a regular basis; UPDATE: there is a ferry once a week (Tuesday) from Odessa to Varna operated by UkrFerry; there is also a ferry twice a week (Monday and Friday) from Odessa to Istanbul operated by Sea Lines;
    • yet another option may be to get on a ship from nearby Izmail up the Danube River (to the best of my knowledge, they go as far north-west as Passau, Germany).

Just an idea at this point. If I find time and resources, I might actually act upon it...


P.S. 
The name of the river this bike route runs along (albeit, at this point, only in my imagination) is transliterated from Ukrainian as Dnister. In Moldova, its name is Nistru. Calling the same route "Dnister Bicycle Route" in Ukraine and "Nistru Bicycle Route" in Moldova, although may be politically correct, does not seem very practical. So, in order to keep the name consistent (and politically neutral) across both countries, the conventional English spelling Dniester - used, among others, by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary - seems like the best choice to me.
Posted by Ira Portman at 14:04
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