In the second century, the Roman frontier in Germany ran across the hills of the Taunus north of the Rhine as a line of wooden palisades, ditches, earth banks, watchtowers and forts, stretching over five hundred kilometres from the Rhine to the Danube. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, as it is called, is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, listed by UNESCO in 2005, and the fortlet of Pfarrhofen, near Holzhausen an der Haide in the western Taunus, is one of the many small installations along its course. A fortlet was a small fort with a garrison of a few dozen men, guarding a road crossing or a section of the frontier between larger forts.
At Pfarrhofen, the remains are modest: low earthworks and stones in a forest clearing, with information panels explaining the site. Walking along the line of the frontier, which is marked by a trail, you can see the remains of the bank and ditch in the forest, and imagine the soldiers who patrolled it.
The western Taunus is a quiet, rural area of forested hills, fields and small villages, between the Lahn and the Rhine. The roads through it are narrow, winding and generally well surfaced, with little traffic, and they offer pleasant riding through the forest and over the hills. To the west, the Rhine gorge, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, is a UNESCO site, with castles on the cliffs, vineyards on the slopes and the famous Loreley rock, and the roads along the river, on both banks, are scenic though busy. Ferries cross the Rhine at several points, as there are no bridges between Koblenz and Mainz.
To the north, the Lahn valley offers another lovely ride, with the spa town of Bad Ems and the town of Nassau, home of the counts of Nassau, ancestors of the Dutch royal family. The road along the river winds through a narrow valley with forests and castles.
Nastätten, about four kilometres away, has fuel and basic services; Nassau, about twelve kilometres away, is larger. In the villages, try a plate of Handkäs mit Musik, a sour milk cheese marinated in vinegar, oil and onions, a speciality of Hesse and the Rhineland, or a glass of Riesling from the Rhine vineyards. And walk for a while along the frontier line in the forest, where the silence of the trees is broken only by birdsong.