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 77 km one-way ride from near Luxembourg, about 1 h 26 of riding. On the way it passes Larochette, Mullerthal and Echternach. It crosses from Luxembourg into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 26 km this is Luxembourg Mullerthal Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Luxembourg City is built on a rock, or rather on several rocks, split by deep gorges cut by the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers. The old fortress, one of the most formidable in Europe, was dismantled after 1867, but the casemates, long tunnels cut into the cliff, survive and can be visited. The old town and fortifications are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the viewpoint along the Chemin de la Corniche, which has been called the most beautiful balcony in Europe, looks down on the valley and the old quarter of Grund. About seventy-seven thousand people live in the city proper, and it is a wealthy, multilingual, slightly formal place with a large banking sector.
Read the complete Luxembourg City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Luxembourg City is where the day begins. Next is Larochette.
Larochette sits in a narrow, wooded valley in the middle of Luxembourg, under a huge sandstone crag with a ruined castle perched on top. The Luxembourgish name is Fiels, meaning rock, and the rock is the point. The castle was built in the Middle Ages and developed over the centuries by local lords, then abandoned in the sixteenth century and left to the ivy, and its walls still stand, with a few towers and halls open to visitors. The town below is small and pleasant, with a main square, old houses along the White Ernz stream, cafes and a long history of textile making.
Read the complete Larochette write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Larochette comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mullerthal.
The Mullerthal is the green heart of what Luxembourgers call Little Switzerland, a region of deep, narrow valleys cut into pale sandstone, where the forest grows right down into the gorges and the streams tumble over mossy rocks. The name means mill valley, because the Black Ernz stream once powered a string of mills, and a few still stand along the water. The landscape is dominated by sandstone formations, with walls of rock, huge boulders, narrow passages between cliffs and caves where legend says smugglers and outlaws once hid. It is a gentle, mysterious sort of country, damp, green and quiet.
Read the complete Mullerthal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 34 km into the recorded legs you reach Mullerthal. Next is Echternach.
Echternach claims to be the oldest town in Luxembourg, and its story begins in the year 698, when the Northumbrian missionary Willibrord received land here from a local noblewoman and founded an abbey beside the river Sure. He had come from England to convert the Frisians, and the abbey that grew up around his tomb became one of the great centres of learning of the early Middle Ages, famous for its illuminated manuscripts. The basilica, rebuilt after heavy damage in the Second World War, still holds his sarcophagus in the crypt, and pilgrims come to it every year.
Read the complete Echternach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Echternach, late in the day. Next is Vianden.
Vianden is one of those towns that looks like a scene from a children's book, and the castle is the reason. It stands on a rocky spur above the Our River, in the north-east of Luxembourg, a pile of towers, halls and chapels that grew over several centuries from the eleventh to the fourteenth, and was once the seat of the counts of Vianden. It fell into ruin in the nineteenth century and was restored from the 1970s, and today you can walk through its great halls, kitchens and armouries with a very good sense of how a medieval noble household worked.
Read the complete Vianden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Vianden. That is the ride.
Luxembourg City → Larochette is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Larochette → Mullerthal is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mullerthal → Echternach is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Echternach → Vianden is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.