CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 280 km round trip from Luzern - roughly 4 h 47 in the saddle. On the way it passes Oterswil / Insel Eielen, Seematte, Halbinsel and Sumpf. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
For about 41 km this is Lake Lucerne Axenstrasse, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 28 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Lucerne is where central Switzerland likes to show off. The town sits at the end of its lake, with the Reuss river sliding out through the middle, old houses with painted gables along the quay, and mountains on every side, Pilatus to the south and the Rigi to the east. The best-known sight is the Kapellbrücke, the Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden footbridge from the fourteenth century with a stone water tower beside it, and painted panels under the roof. A fire in 1993 burned much of it, and the bridge was rebuilt, so the paintings you see are mostly reconstructions, but the shape is old. Nearby the Lion Monument, carved into a sandstone cliff in 1821, commemorates Swiss guards who died in Paris in 1792, and Mark Twain called it the saddest piece of stone in the world.
Read the complete Lucerne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lucerne is where the day begins. Next is Oterswil / Insel Eielen.
Lake Zug is the quiet one among the central Swiss lakes, long and slender, with the Rigi rising steeply from its southern end and gentle farmland and orchards rolling down to its northern shores. Around its edges, as around many Alpine lakes, people built villages on the shore in prehistoric times, and the remains of these settlements at places like Oterswil and the little island of Eielen are among the sites of the transnational pile dwelling listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2011. Under water and mud, wooden piles, pottery and tools have survived for thousands of years.
Read the complete Oterswil / Insel Eielen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oterswil / Insel Eielen comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Seematte.
Lake Baldegg lies in the Seetal, the lake valley north of Lucerne, a gentle, green landscape of meadows, orchards and woods, with the lake in the middle and the hills rising on either side. Seematte, on the shore near Hitzkirch, is the site of prehistoric lakeside villages, built on piles over the water's edge thousands of years ago, and it was inscribed in the same 2011 listing that covers lakeside villages from France to Slovenia. As with most such sites, there is nothing to see above ground, but the setting is lovely, and standing on the reedy shore you can imagine the wooden houses and dugout canoes.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Seematte. Next is Halbinsel.
At the northern tip of Lake Sempach, near the little town of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne, a small peninsula pushes into the water, and on and around it lie the remains of prehistoric lakeside settlements, part of the World Heritage site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Nothing remains visible above ground, but under the water and in the wet soil of the shore, piles and objects have survived for thousands of years, telling the story of farmers and fishermen who lived here long before the Romans. Today, the shore is a quiet area of reeds, meadows and paths, popular with walkers and cyclists.
Read the complete Halbinsel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Halbinsel, about halfway. Next is Sumpf.
Zug-Sumpf was a Bronze Age village on the northern shore of Lake Zug, near the mouth of the river Lorze between Cham and Steinhausen, and the waterlogged ground preserved wooden floors, posts and objects for over three thousand years. Excavations in the twentieth century recovered pottery, bronze tools and even remains of food, and the site sits on the World Heritage list as part of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Some of the finds are displayed in the museum of prehistory in Zug. Today the site lies under modern buildings and meadows, and only the name, which means swamp, recalls its watery origin.
Read the complete Sumpf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sumpf sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through Halbinsel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Halbinsel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Halbinsel comes up about 189 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Seematte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 209 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Seematte. Next is back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oterswil / Insel Eielen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen, late in the day. Next is Lucerne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lucerne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 280 km.
Lucerne → Oterswil / Insel Eielen is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oterswil / Insel Eielen → Seematte is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seematte → Halbinsel is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Halbinsel → Sumpf is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sumpf → back through Halbinsel is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Halbinsel → back through Seematte is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seematte → back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen → Lucerne is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.