Barbara Baths and City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
256 km
Riding-time estimate
3 h 48
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 256 km round trip from Trier - roughly 3 h 48 in the saddle. On the way it passes City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F, La place forte de Longwy, back through La place forte de Longwy and back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F. It crosses Germany, Luxembourg and France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Scenic road chapters
Luxembourg Mullerthal Route
For about 49 km this is Luxembourg Mullerthal Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Chapter facts
Length
49 km
Named road
Luxembourg Mullerthal Route
Luxembourg Mullerthal Route
This part of the ride is 39 km of Luxembourg Mullerthal Route.
Chapter facts
Length
39 km
Named road
Luxembourg Mullerthal Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Barbara Baths
Trier is the city that Germans call the oldest in the country, and the Barbara Baths are among the reasons it can say so with a straight face. Built in the second century AD, when Augusta Treverorum was one of the leading cities of the Roman north, they were once among the largest bathing complexes anywhere outside Rome, a vast rectangle of hot rooms, cold plunges, exercise yards and furnace tunnels. Later centuries treated the building as a quarry, and medieval Trier built houses and a monastery over parts of it, which is why what survives is a maze of walls, arches and basement passages rather than a roofed hall. Walk down into the underground service tunnels and you can see the sooty vaults where slaves tended the fires.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barbara Baths is where the day begins. Next is City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F.
2. City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F
Luxembourg City is built on a rocky plateau above the deep, green valleys of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers, and for centuries it was one of the most powerful fortresses in Europe, nicknamed the Gibraltar of the North. Spanish, French, Austrian and Prussian armies all held it, and each added to its walls, bastions and tunnels. In 1867, after an international treaty, most of the fortifications were dismantled, but enough remains to make the old quarters and fortifications a UNESCO World Heritage site, inscribed in 1994.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is La place forte de Longwy.
3. La place forte de Longwy
In 1678, after Louis XIV won Longwy from the Spanish Netherlands in the Treaty of Nijmegen, he sent his great military engineer Vauban to make sure nobody took it back. Vauban did not just fortify the old town; he built a new one, Longwy-Haut, on the plateau, designing a star-shaped stronghold with bastions, ditches and a geometric grid of streets around a central square with a well and church. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the World Heritage list, and walking the ramparts you can still read the logic of seventeenth-century siege warfare in the earth and stone.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barbara Baths closes the day.
Leg by leg
Barbara Baths to City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F
Barbara Baths → City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F to La place forte de Longwy
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → La place forte de Longwy is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La place forte de Longwy to City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F
La place forte de Longwy → City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F to back through La place forte de Longwy
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → back through La place forte de Longwy is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La place forte de Longwy to back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F
back through La place forte de Longwy → back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F to Barbara Baths
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → Barbara Baths is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.