Höhr-Grenzhausen is clay country, and that decides almost everything about this part of the Westerwald. The hills hold a thick seam of fine, high-quality stoneware clay, and for centuries the area has been known as the Kannenbäckerland, the land of the jug makers. Grey salt-glazed pottery with blue decoration, called Westerwald stoneware, was exported across Europe from here, and workshops and a ceramics museum still keep the trade alive. It is a surprising backdrop for a Roman watchtower, but the Romans were here first, and WP 1/61 is one of the numbered posts of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, which UNESCO listed in 2005.
The site itself is modest, as most of the towers are. The limes ran over the forested ridge above the town, and the old numbering, section and tower, comes from the German survey of the late nineteenth century. You are looking at a mound, a possible reconstruction and a sign, in beech and spruce woodland that smells of damp needles in the morning. Do not make a long trip for the tower alone. Make the trip for the lanes.
The roads around Höhr-Grenzhausen are among the more rewarding in the region. The land is cut by little valleys, with climbs through woodland to open ridges and back down into villages with brick and slate roofs, and the surface is mostly sound. The Westerwald is a plateau with moody weather, so even in July a front can arrive from the Atlantic and drop the temperature by ten degrees. Take a layer. The smaller lanes between the villages give the best twisting, and they are quiet on weekdays.
If you have an extra half hour, a visit to the ceramics museum tells you more about the area than any watchtower. Local bakeries do a good plum tart, and the potters sell mugs that survive the journey home in a pannier far better than you would expect.