Butzbach is the sort of town that gets overlooked because it sits beside the motorway and the Frankfurt sprawl, and that is a pity, because the old centre is a proper half-timbered market town with a square worth a coffee. About a kilometre from the middle, the Romans once had a fort on the Limes, and the civil settlement, the vicus, grew up beside it. That is the story behind the label: soldiers first, then traders, wives, craftsmen and innkeepers who followed the pay.
The landscape explains why. Butzbach lies on the northern edge of the Wetterau, a broad, fertile plain of loess soil, one of the best farming country in Hesse, with the Taunus rising to the south and the first low hills of the Vogelsberg and the Lahn country beyond. The frontier here ran along the edge of the plain, taking in the rich land that Rome wanted inside its boundary. Today the plain is wheat, beet and rapeseed, with wind pushing across it, and the roads are straight and fast, which is a different pleasure from the hill lanes elsewhere on the same Limes. Early light on a clear spring morning, with the fields green and the church towers sharp, is as good as it gets.
For a rider this is a practical stop. The town has about twenty-five thousand people, so fuel, food and a bakery are all within a few minutes, and Langgöns and Rockenberg, a little farther out, can offer the same on a smaller scale. Parking near the market square is easy on a motorbike, and the pedestrian lanes are pleasant to walk. The wall of half-timbering around the market, with its fountain and stepped gables, is the thing to look at while you eat.
The Limes itself is now a World Heritage line, and the route here threads watchtower positions numbered in the surveyors' system that the frontier researchers used, with a few reconstructions along the way. Be ready to read little information boards rather than gape at ruins. It rewards a patient rider, and anybody who enjoys the quiet satisfaction of standing where an empire simply stopped.