DOCUMENTED JOURNEYS · 1675–1676
Follow Nicolae Milescu’s 1675–1676 embassy on a map, then explore projects about routes, travellers and the ways people move.
Choose a milestone. The map marks its place; the note below gives the date and the kind of evidence.
One embassy, milestone by milestone
The itinerary follows places named in Milescu’s journal. The line does not claim to reproduce every turn or stop.
3 March 1675
The embassy leaves Moscow
The embassy journal dates its departure to 3 March 1675. From Moscow, the journey crosses Siberia towards China; the line follows the sequence of places named in the journal.
The journal names the starting point. The line between stops does not reproduce every turn of the road.
Project with its sources
The tsar’s envoy to the Kangxi Emperor was a Moldavian boyar. The embassy’s report and the Qing court record, set side by side day by day along a Kangxi-period painted scroll of Beijing: who laid the letter on the table, how the envoy bowed, and why he left without a reply.
Project with its sources
Faxian, Xuanzang, Du Huan, Changchun, Rabban Bar Sauma, Zhou Daguan and Zheng He: seven journeys out of China between 399 and 1433, on one map, with what they wrote about what they saw.
Method: the mapped line follows the sequence of places in the Milescu project. Dashed sections mark stretches the source does not locate with the same precision. This is not a GPS track and does not measure travel distance.
Browse every travel projectThe map in the Milescu project follows places named in the 1675–1676 account. Stops and dates come from the text; the stretches between them are reconstructed, and some remain dashed.
Project with its sources
The tsar’s envoy to the Kangxi Emperor was a Moldavian boyar. The embassy’s report and the Qing court record, set side by side day by day along a Kangxi-period painted scroll of Beijing: who laid the letter on the table, how the envoy bowed, and why he left without a reply.
Project with its sources
Faxian, Xuanzang, Du Huan, Changchun, Rabban Bar Sauma, Zhou Daguan and Zheng He: seven journeys out of China between 399 and 1433, on one map, with what they wrote about what they saw.
Egeria, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta leave different kinds of records: itineraries, descriptions and recollections that do not share the same precision or purpose. Each project explains how its route was reconstructed.
Project with its sources
Egeria, a woman from the far west of the Empire, wrote home to her friends about three years in the Holy Land. The text, found in Arezzo in 1884, on the map.
Project with its sources
A Chinese entry of 1290 names the same three envoys as Marco Polo, though not Marco. Nine passages of the book stand beside Chinese texts about the same things: the fee on worn banknotes, couriers with bells, the cowries of Yunnan, the siege engines at Xiangyang. With the route of 1271–1295 on the map, what the book leaves out and a ten-question quiz.
Project with its sources
Ibn Battuta, from Tangier to Kilwa, Constantinople, Delhi, the Maldives, China and Mali: 108,800 kilometres, measured on the map.
Contemporary routes have their own markings and practical information. Start with Via Transilvanica, then check projects about trains, cycling and access before setting out.
Project with its sources
How to plan Via Transilvanica: Maior Putna–Drobeta 1,392.8 km measured, 8 lands with dated GPX, free guides, 3 gates with measured road access.
Project with its sources
Every line is a train. A whole day becomes one image.
Project with its sources
Learn how to buy CFR tickets and compare six routes checked on 25 September 2026. The guide covers sleeper and bicycle fares, plus the European rules for delay compensation.
Visas, straits and border crossings belong to different periods and rules. Their pages explain what can be said about access and what needs checking against current sources.
Project with its sources
The Bosphorus followed on the map from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara: 31 km, 12 changes of course, 699 m at its narrowest, two currents one above the other and, in 2025, an average of 110 ship passages a day. In Romanian, English and French.
Project with its sources
The Strait of Malacca is about 800–930 km long, depending on the source, and about 2.8 km wide at its southern gateway. What its numbers measure: 94,301 transits, 23.2 million barrels a day, 29%, 48%. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
Project with its sources
At its narrowest the Strait of Gibraltar is about 14 km wide. The Atlantic flows in on top and the Mediterranean flows out underneath. With a map for measuring the width, the Pillars of Hercules, the 1713 treaty and the shipping traffic in numbers. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
Project with its sources
Three tracks separated: the nomad's ten papers, the 3× wage math, work with the employer first. Every legal sentence with its article; the sorter gives FIT/HOLD bands, never verdicts; not legal advice.
Travellers · 93 projects
Projects on documented journeys, transport, places to visit and travel rules.
93 projects
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Journeys in the record
From the western border to the valley that fills each Pentecost run 485.3 km of marked road — 20 days of walking. Type a town name: the page shows the road that remains, section by section.
Routes and transport
Eight electric cars, four countries, eight timed days. The data of the EUROCHARGE 2026 tour puts every stop on one road: how long it took, what it cost, how much battery was left on arrival. One car spent 3 h 15 min at stations over the tour, another 10 h 3 min.
Routes and transport
The Strait of Malacca is about 800–930 km long, depending on the source, and about 2.8 km wide at its southern gateway. What its numbers measure: 94,301 transits, 23.2 million barrels a day, 29%, 48%. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
Routes and transport
At its narrowest the Strait of Gibraltar is about 14 km wide. The Atlantic flows in on top and the Mediterranean flows out underneath. With a map for measuring the width, the Pillars of Hercules, the 1713 treaty and the shipping traffic in numbers. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
Routes and transport
The Bosphorus followed on the map from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara: 31 km, 12 changes of course, 699 m at its narrowest, two currents one above the other and, in 2025, an average of 110 ship passages a day. In Romanian, English and French.
Routes and transport
The route through Penn Station in 1910, demolition in 1963–1966 and the present station: one plan coordinate, different levels, trains still running. The rooms were demolished while the trains kept running — what did the city lose above a station that never closed?
Routes and transport
A train wheel is shaped like a cone, and the shape does the steering. Push a wheelset sideways, watch the wave about ten metres long it draws, then test the idea with two cups.
Journeys in the record
Two lines of ice-age footprints in New Mexico, at least 1.5 km long, show someone small hurrying across slippery mud with a child probably under three, then walking back hours later. Carry the child along the trail, switch hips, set them down when they wriggle, then walk back over a mammoth’s and a giant sloth’s tracks.
Routes and transport
The press calls two different lines “the first railway in Romania”. Choose what “first” means and watch the answer change, then ride the real 1854 track, which leaves today’s Romania and comes back.
Places to visit
See only the relief around a place in Romania and take six guesses to find it on the map.
Routes and transport
Daily tap counts at 434 London stations, January 2019 to September 2026, wound into rings: one ring per year, one slice per day. Southfields lights up for Wimbledon, Arsenal station follows the fixture list, Ladbroke Grove has no row on Carnival days, and on Christmas Day TfL counts zero Tube journeys. Pick your station and a date of your own.
Routes and transport
Price ten fares across four dated runs — an Exchange run of 1655, a lawyer's shilling of 1662, two admeasured miles of 1715, a GPO circle of 1832 — then judge who the paper meter served, on two dated proof rails.
Journeys in the record
In Constitution Square, the People's House does not fit inside one photograph. Underneath it there was once a neighbourhood — sloping streets, villas, churches — and one of the churches did not die: it walked away on rails and is waiting behind the blocks. Pull it yourself, metre by metre. In Romanian and English.
Journeys in the record
In Barcelona's quietest square, a church wall is full of small holes: shrapnel from 30 January 1938. You touch each scar and the morning comes back, minute by minute — down to the name the regime tried to give it. In Romanian, English, Spanish and Catalan.
Journeys in the record
A reconstructed working day in a Spitalfields garret: treadle the 1888 sewing machine, the sun crosses the weaver's window, and the day pays you from the documented wage — 12 shillings and sixpence a week — plus four peoples on one street.
Journeys in the record
A human tower stands in the square, at La Mercè in Barcelona. You climb it by scrolling, crown it by raising your hand — like the enxaneta — then come down and lend your shoulders to the base, to the pinya. In Romanian, English, Spanish and Catalan.
Routes and transport
The Fleet from Hampstead to the Thames: eight beats of the course, a four-map dated slider (1559–1896), twelve acts of the burial, and ten traces to walk.
Journeys in the record
Andrée, Strindberg and Frænkel flew for 65 hours, came down on the ice 786 kilometres from the Pole and walked for almost two months while the ice carried them south-east. Their route on the map, from the diaries found in 1930, Strindberg's photographs developed 33 years later, and what is and is not known about how they died.
Routes and transport
The complete Bucharest specialty-coffee map: 193 cafés and 19 roasteries, verified, with addresses, areas and sources. From Origo (2013) to world roasting champions.
Journeys in the record
36 places where the sources attest the Normans, from Hastings to Palermo and Antioch — each with its evidence grade. The farthest, Antioch, lies 3,177 km from Rouen. Type your town and see how close they came.
Journeys in the record
A map of 120 places where Scandinavians are placed by the sources, from Dublin to Seville and from Kyiv to the Caspian. Each is graded by how we know. Type your town to see the nearest.
Routes and transport
Rejected by Moscow in 1952, opened with 6 stations in 1979: the decision, the digging, the first train, today's network.
Journeys in the record
Afanasy Nikitin left Tver in 1466 and reached India 29 years before da Gama. His route mapped, his six Easters, what he saw, chapter by chapter.
Journeys in the record
Ibn Battuta, from Tangier to Kilwa, Constantinople, Delhi, the Maldives, China and Mali: 108,800 kilometres, measured on the map.
Journeys in the record
Egeria, a woman from the far west of the Empire, wrote home to her friends about three years in the Holy Land. The text, found in Arezzo in 1884, on the map.
Journeys in the record
Pytheas's book on Britain and Thule was lost more than 2,000 years ago. What survives of it comes only from the quotations of the people who argued with him.
Journeys in the record
The 1030-1066 route on the map: from Stiklestad to Kyiv, the Byzantine guard in Sicily, an escape over an iron chain, and the throne of Norway, to the field at Stamford Bridge.
Journeys in the record
Bergen, London's Steelyard, King's Lynn and Boston: four stops of a 14th-century Hanseatic trade through England. The real cargo, stop by stop, isn't what you'd guess.
Journeys in the record
John Leland spent a decade travelling England and Wales on a royal commission and a thousand questions. He filled 11 notebook Parts. His mind was failing by 1547, and the promised book was never written.
Journeys in the record
Antonio Pigafetta wrote down the whole voyage: the strait, the starvation in the Pacific, Magellan's death at Mactan, the day lost at the date line. The only complete eyewitness account of the first circumnavigation, on the map.
Journeys in the record
Celia Fiennes travelled for her health, by coach at first and later on her own horses. Her own journal puts her in 39 of England's 40 historic counties, all but Monmouthshire.
Journeys in the record
The tsar’s envoy to the Kangxi Emperor was a Moldavian boyar. The embassy’s report and the Qing court record, set side by side day by day along a Kangxi-period painted scroll of Beijing: who laid the letter on the table, how the envoy bowed, and why he left without a reply.
Journeys in the record
Evliya Çelebi wrote 20,000 houses in Iași and 100,000 people inside Brașov. Here is what the other counts say.
Journeys in the record
The diary of Mirza Abul Hassan Khan, the Persian envoy who conquered — and sharply judged — London in 1810.
Routes and transport
One Romanian Danube as the base, sold six ways by three companies (one detours to the sea): an 11-day cruise-tour, an 8-day short sailing, 12-day / 14-night full transits. Route, company and season compared, with sailing months and dated fares, so you leave with a route plus a company plus a month.
Journeys in the record
Lanterns burning all night in Vienna, Swiss peasants reading newspapers and, at home, men held in the sun under a beam over taxes. Dinicu Golescu's travel book, on a map.
Journeys in the record
Carpini and Rubruck, two Franciscans at the Mongol court after the 1241 invasion: Güyük's letter, Karakorum, the Parisian goldsmith and the debate held on the khan's orders.
Journeys in the record
The Greenlanders' saga and Erik the Red's saga tell the same story, contradict each other, and give no year. A dig at the northern tip of Newfoundland shows that Norse people camped there, but does not tell us what they called it. A measurement published in 2021, on three worked pieces of wood from that camp, gives the year: the trees were cut in 1021.
Routes and transport
Giurgiu 1883, Bucharest sleepers, the 1977 farewell. Three lines to Istanbul and the Express's Romanian century.
Journeys in the record
From Vinland to Beijing and Karakorum to the Cape of Good Hope: seven true medieval journeys, drawn on the map step by step. Replay their routes and stamp your logbook.
Journeys in the record
A Chinese entry of 1290 names the same three envoys as Marco Polo, though not Marco. Nine passages of the book stand beside Chinese texts about the same things: the fee on worn banknotes, couriers with bells, the cowries of Yunnan, the siege engines at Xiangyang. With the route of 1271–1295 on the map, what the book leaves out and a ten-question quiz.
Journeys in the record
Faxian, Xuanzang, Du Huan, Changchun, Rabban Bar Sauma, Zhou Daguan and Zheng He: seven journeys out of China between 399 and 1433, on one map, with what they wrote about what they saw.
Places to visit
A map of the six Dacian fortresses in the Orăștie Mountains shows road and walking access, elevation gain, time needed, opening hours, tickets and each site's condition.
Places to visit
A map of Transylvania's 162 fortified churches includes the seven UNESCO villages, heritage class, published opening hours, keyholder contact and damaged buildings.
Places to visit
A map of Romania's oldest trees: 5,703 measured ancient trees with species, girth, county and indicative age, the four radiocarbon-dated oaks and three other dated trees, and the centuries-old tree nearest to you.
Places to visit
A map of Roman archaeological sites open to the public in Romania, including Porolissum, Drobeta and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, with opening hours, tickets and sources.
Routes and transport
Romania's passenger train timetable by station and route, with downloads as GTFS, SQLite and GeoJSON. Timetable valid until 12 December 2026.
Places to visit
An end-to-end guide to Hadrian's Wall with its measured elevation profile, forts, milecastles, turrets and car-free connections, together with the limits of the available data.
Routes and transport
Map of Romania's railway tunnels and viaducts: Teliu, Caracău, Oravița–Anina, the Jiu Gorge and the Ormeniș and Homorod works.
Routes and transport
Is the Transfagarasan open now? Opening and closing dates 2015–2026, Transalpina comparison, altitude profile, fuel, the Balea cable car, and what to do when it's closed.
Places to visit
Which Romanian salt mine is worth it? 2026 prices and hours for Turda, Praid, Slanic Prahova and Cacica, depth, temperature, what's inside each, and a verdict per traveler. Praid is temporarily closed.
Places to visit
Voronet, Humor, Moldovita, Sucevita, Arbore: what to see at each, published hours, service times to avoid, and the optimal route with measured driving distances from Gura Humorului or Suceava.
Places to visit
Bran, Peleș, Corvin, Râșnov, Făgăraș, Cantacuzino: adult tickets, official hours, closed days and the best day trip from Brașov, Sibiu or Sinaia, with measured road distances.
Places to visit
5 ski areas compared: 1-day pass, slope count, night skiing and measured access from Bucharest, Brașov, Sibiu, Cluj. Official 2025–2026 prices.
Places to visit
5 spa resorts compared: water type, entry price, treatment base and measured access from Oradea, Cluj, Brașov, Bucharest. Official tariffs.
Routes and transport
The Delta access permit (5/15/30 lei), car, boat, fishing and photo permits, plus Navrom timetables from Tulcea to Sulina, Sfântu Gheorghe and Mila 23.
Journeys in the record
Steam compared: Viseu de Sus (136 lei, 6 h), Sovata (80 lei, 2 h), Moldovita–Argel (60 lei) and Vatra (30 lei). 2026 programs and measured drives.
Places to visit
Three caves with official fares: Ialomita (30 lei, all year), Polovragi (20 lei, daily), Comarnic (35 lei, Apr–Oct, min group 5). Hours and measured drives.
Places to visit
Six museums with official fares: Village, Antipa, Ceausescu House, MNAR, MNIR, Parliament. Hours and measured access.
Routes and transport
The Danube gorge with published fares: Orsova cruises T5/T6 (80–120 lei), charter 720 lei, Iron Gates Museum (40 lei). Hours and measured drives.
Places to visit
Six resorts, official fares where published: Casino 53 lei, Dolphinarium 74.37, Aqua Magic closed in September, bridge 13 lei. Measured access from Bucharest.
Routes and transport
How to drive Transalpina: Novaci or Sebes by base, 134.7 km / 3h39 traverse with no stops, measured segments, Ranca–Curpat 30 km/h, closed at night.
Places to visit
What to see in Maramures: Sighet Memorial 25 lei, Planetarium 20, Mineralogy 20, Sapanta with no official fare, Mocanita in the dedicated guide. Measured access.
Places to visit
Which medieval city: Sibiu with ASTRA 50 and Brukenthal 50, Brasov with the Black Church 20 RON and Art 12, Sighisoara UNESCO with no official fares. Measured access.
Routes and transport
How to plan Via Transilvanica: Maior Putna–Drobeta 1,392.8 km measured, 8 lands with dated GPX, free guides, 3 gates with measured road access.
Entry and access
Chinese passport holders can check where to apply and which documents to prepare for a trip to Romania. The guide follows the EU’s harmonised list for China and reflects Romania’s Schengen membership since 1 January 2025.
Places to visit
Is Bran worth it? Stoker never visited Romania, and the novel never names Bran. Six places graded by evidence — archive (Targoviste), disputed tradition (Snagov), late materialization (Borgo) — with a visit router.
Places to visit
Ceaușescu's House, Revolution Square and the Palace of Parliament in one day: booking rules, official tariffs, leg distances, four December 1989 dates and a trilingual glossary.
Journeys in the record
Thirteen months frozen in Antarctic ice. Read the Belgica voyage, then the expedition's photographs.
Journeys in the record
The game names a place in Romania and you drop the pin where you think it is: 45 places, 10 rounds, scored by kilometres.
Entry and access
For a Bucharest airport layover, compare staying in the terminal, visiting the city or staying overnight. Check transit and entry rules, then compare measured train, bus and taxi times.
Journeys in the record
Browse Romania’s 35 DOC wine regions, check Recaș visitor packages and booking rules, and follow Cotnari’s five-step tasting method.
Routes and transport
Learn how to buy CFR tickets and compare six routes checked on 25 September 2026. The guide covers sleeper and bicycle fares, plus the European rules for delay compensation.
Journeys in the record
Read the Romanian inscriptions on nine painted crosses from Săpânța alongside working Chinese and English translations. Each entry separates what the text says from interpretations the sources cannot confirm.
Places to visit
Compare visits to the Libearty sanctuary with bear-safety rules in Piatra Craiului National Park. The guide also gives a preliminary estimate from the 2025 survey and two routes from Brașov; wild sightings cannot be guaranteed.
Journeys in the record
Explore 30 dishes from three Bucharest menus, with names, ingredients and allergen information. The guide also explains restaurant bills and tipping.
Entry and access
Three tracks separated: the nomad's ten papers, the 3× wage math, work with the employer first. Every legal sentence with its article; the sorter gives FIT/HOLD bands, never verdicts; not legal advice.
Places to visit
See when 24 Delta birds migrate or nest, explore three suggested trips, and read the visitor guidelines. The guide has no current population estimates and cannot predict what you will see.
Places to visit
Learn what to check when buying Horezu ceramics or an ie blouse with altiță embroidery: sourced signs, warning signs and questions to ask at a market. Prices are dated and sourced.
Journeys in the record
Cross the Danube on Apollodorus’s bridge, rebuilt on the valley’s real terrain with the river lowered below today’s reservoir, then watch Hadrian and the centuries take it down to the pier stumps. What is known is marked apart from what is rebuilt.
Journeys in the record
Cârțișoara 1849, Rome 1896, Sinaia 1911: the shepherd who carried a library over the mountains, then walked 43 days to Trajan's Column.
Places to visit
Miletus, the silver drachma, the AD 100 boundary. Four chapters and a map that silts as you read.
Entry and access
The UK Foreign Office advises against travel to Transnistria, and the latest readable Romanian advisory recommends avoiding the region. The guide explains entry procedures and transport via Chișinău.
Entry and access
A relocation router: 3 questions route you onto one of 7 legal roads — D/AM1, D/AM2, Blue Card, study, digital nomad, reunification, business. Each road with documents, the first official step, and the lie that traps most people.
Routes and transport
An interactive explainer about the gap between north on a map and north in a compass needle.
Journeys in the record
A critical synthesis of DRD4-7R, novelty, migration, culture and the only direct tourism study found in this research register.
Routes and transport
The destinations of every Romanian airport, 2001–2024, from Eurostat. Luton has been the country's top destination since 2015. Pick an airport and a year and read the departures board; every airport has its own page with all its routes.
Routes and transport
Every line is a train. A whole day becomes one image.
Journeys in the record
The journeys from 26 stories on this site, from Pytheas to Voyager 1, on one calendar you scroll through. Their travellers were rarely on the road at the same time: four times in more than 2,300 years, and only once with the day certain at both ends, in August 1897.
Places to visit
An interactive bilingual atlas of 100 singular places, natural anomalies, ice caves, archaic relics, and unique engineering in Romania with map and documented cards.
Routes and transport
Romania has 17 airports in its passenger traffic statistics. See them on a map, ranked by 2025 passengers, and find the airport nearest to your town.
Places to visit
Bran said: not here. At the end of 1,480 concrete steps, on Mount Cetățuia at 850 metres, stands the fortress tradition and archaeology attribute to Vlad the Impaler: a 14th-century tower, a 15th-century building. Climb the steps in 3D, then grade the legends.
Journeys in the record
Sunset, sunrise and twilight times for London through 2026–27, the clocks going back on 25 October, and how many of your weekday journeys home start after sunset.
This page uses the catalogue’s Travel subject and adds projects whose central subject is movement, a route or access to travel. Visitor guides and current rules keep their own dates and sources. Historical routes remain at the precision allowed by their documents.
Reviewed · Collection as text
The project compares only source-supported intervals and explains approximate dates.
Route and GPX files dated in the project.
Routes, tickets and delays, each linked to its source.
Pages with official prices and opening times, dated to the check.
The text used by the mapped project for the sequence of places. The map simplifies the route; it does not measure the journey.
Public-domain basemap data. The route over it is an editorial reconstruction from the journal.
