In Bavaria, the Roman frontier changed character. Instead of the wooden palisade used in the Upper German section, the Raetian Limes was eventually built as a stone wall, known locally as the Devil's Wall, because medieval people could not imagine anyone but the devil building something so long. The stretch between Watchtowers 15/1 and 15/7 crosses the hills around the Altmühl valley, near Kipfenberg and Kinding, and the line of the wall can still be traced in places as a low ridge in the forest. It is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage site.
Kipfenberg, in the valley below, has a Roman museum, the Römer und Bajuwaren Museum, with finds from the area and displays about life on the frontier. The town also claims to be close to the geographical centre of Bavaria, marked by a stone in the hills. A reconstructed wooden watchtower stands near Erkertshofen, giving a sense of how the frontier looked.
The Altmühl valley is one of the most beautiful landscapes in Bavaria, a deep, winding valley carved through the limestone of the Franconian Jura, with white cliffs, juniper heaths, castles and small towns. It is a nature park, popular with canoeists, cyclists and walkers, and the slow, meandering river is lined with willows and meadows. The limestone here is famous for its fossils, and the quarries around Solnhofen and Eichstätt have yielded specimens of Archaeopteryx, the feathered dinosaur.
The riding is excellent. The roads along the valley follow the river with gentle bends and views of the cliffs, while the roads that climb onto the plateau above have steeper gradients and tighter turns. Traffic is light on weekdays, busier at weekends with tourists and cyclists. Surfaces are generally good. Watch for farm traffic, gravel and wildlife, especially deer at dawn and dusk.
Kipfenberg, Greding and Beilngries have fuel, shops and restaurants; Greding also has a well-preserved medieval wall. The region is known for its beer, brewed in small breweries in many villages, and for hearty Bavarian food, such as roast pork with dumplings and Altmühltal lamb. Spring and autumn are lovely; summers are warm, and winters cold, with fog in the valleys.