The Limes was a frontier made of many small pieces, and Ferbach is one of the little ones. It was a fortlet, a small stone-and-timber post on the Upper Germanic frontier that ran from the Rhine into the hills of the Westerwald, and it housed a handful of soldiers who watched the ground in front of them. Nothing here is grand. What you find is a wooded plateau with traces of ditches and the outline of a small enclosure, and the interest lies in imagining the daily routine of men on a frontier posted far from Rome.
The Limes section here begins at the Rhine near Rheinbrohl and climbs into the Westerwald, a low, rolling upland of beech and spruce, meadows and small villages. Höhr-Grenzhausen, the nearest town with almost 10,000 people, belongs to the so-called Kannenbäckerland, the Jug Bakers' Land, where potters have worked the local grey clay for centuries to make stoneware, and a ceramics museum in town tells the story. Koblenz, where the Rhine and Moselle meet, is a short ride to the west and has the bigger shops and fuel stations.
The riding in the Westerwald is easy and satisfying: roads rise and fall through forest, with long curves, pleasant gradients and few steep sections. Traffic is light on the minor roads, and farms and wind turbines mark the ridges. Autumn colour is good, and in winter frost and fog can linger on the high ground, so take care on shaded bends. The weather is often cooler and wetter than in the Rhine valley below, so bring a waterproof.
If you are following the frontier, the Limes is marked in many places with signs and reconstructed towers, and a hiking route known as the Limes trail follows its line. The German Limes was inscribed by UNESCO in 2005 as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The region is also known for its rich pottery, and you might pick up a small blue-grey stoneware piece as a souvenir. After a look at the fortlet, a slice of cake and a coffee in Höhr-Grenzhausen is a gentle way to finish.