Mainhardt is a small town in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, a long ridge of wooded hills east of Stuttgart and north of Schwäbisch Hall, and the Romans chose to drop their frontier straight through here. The Upper Germanic Limes runs dead straight for many kilometres in this region, up and down hills without regard to the terrain, because the surveyors drew the line first and let the army follow it. At Mainhardt there was a fort with a garrison of auxiliary soldiers, and the outline can be traced in the ground east of the town. The numbers on the label refer to the watchtowers, small timber and then stone posts that stood at intervals along the line within sight of one another.
Like most of the frontier, it is rarely spectacular. Most of the pleasure here is in the forest. The ridges are covered in spruce, fir and beech, the valleys cut sharply into the sandstone, and the paths are carpeted with needles. In the morning the mist lies in the hollows. Streams run fast in spring, and the air has a faint smell of resin and wet soil. The old Limes route is signed for walkers, and a short stroll along it to find the faint bank of a tower platform makes a good break from the saddle.
For motorcyclists the area is very well liked. The roads around Mainhardt and Wüstenrot twist up and down the forested slopes, with a series of tight bends, short steep climbs and quick descents that reward a steady rhythm. The surface is generally good, though forest roads are shaded and slow to dry, and leaf litter and cut timber can be treacherous in the shoulders. Weekends see many other riders and cyclists, and the local police have been known to keep an eye on the popular stretches, so keep the speed civil.
Mainhardt has fuel and a bakery, and Wüstenrot, a few kilometres away, is the village where the first German building society was founded in the 1920s. Both are fine for a coffee. Spring and early autumn are the best seasons, because the forest is cool in midsummer but the weekend traffic is heavy.