Imagine standing in a small timber or stone tower on a cold winter night, looking out over the dark forest for signs of movement, with a fire ready to signal to the next tower along the line. That was the life of the soldiers who manned the watchtowers of the Roman frontier, and the remains of three of them, numbered 2/14 to 2/16 by archaeologists, lie in the woods between Singhofen and Miehlen, on the plateau above the Rhine and the Lahn. Their foundations survive as low mounds and traces in the ground, and the line of the frontier, the ditch and bank, can be followed between them. They are part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, one of the components of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
The watchtowers were usually placed at intervals of a few hundred metres to a kilometre, depending on the terrain, so that each could see its neighbours. The early towers were made of wood, later replaced by stone, and they were usually two or three storeys high, with a lookout platform at the top. Behind them, larger forts housed the main garrison units, ready to respond to any threat. Reconstructions of watchtowers can be seen in several places along the Limes, giving an idea of what they looked like.
The area between Singhofen and Miehlen is a quiet rural plateau, with fields, meadows and patches of forest, and the roads are narrow, winding and almost empty. To the west, the land drops steeply into the Rhine gorge, and the road down to St. Goarshausen and the Loreley is a spectacular ride, with tight hairpins and views over the river, the castles and the vineyards. The Loreley rock, made famous by the poem of Heinrich Heine about the siren who lured boatmen to their deaths, rises high above the river, and there is a visitor centre and viewpoint at the top.
Miehlen and Singhofen are small villages with few services. Nassau, about six kilometres away, has fuel and shops, and the towns along the Rhine have plenty of restaurants and hotels. A car ferry crosses the Rhine at St. Goarshausen, as there are no bridges for long stretches of the gorge. The weather is mild, with warm summers and cool, damp winters, and the river valleys can be foggy in autumn.