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 439 km round trip from Annaberg-Buchholz - roughly 7 h 19 in the saddle. On the way it passes The Red Tower of Death, Žatec, Krupka Mining Landscape and Dresden Elbe Valley. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 63 km this is Saxon Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The twin towns of Annaberg and Buchholz grew from silver. In the late fifteenth century a strike in the Ore Mountains set off a rush, and Annaberg was founded as a mining town with remarkable speed, while neighbouring Buchholz joined it later to form the double-barrelled name you see on the signs. The wealth shows in the St Annen church, a vast late-Gothic hall with a soaring vault, which stands over the market square like a promise made by men who suddenly had money. The wider mining landscape was inscribed by UNESCO in 2019, with its counterpart across the border in Jáchymov, where silver coins were once minted that gave the world the word thaler, and eventually the dollar.
Read the complete Buchholz Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Buchholz Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is The Red Tower of Death.
The name sounds like a horror film, and the reality was grim enough. In the 1950s, the communist government of Czechoslovakia sent tens of thousands of political prisoners to labour camps in the Jáchymov region to mine uranium for the Soviet nuclear programme. In a red brick building near Ostrov, known as the Red Tower of Death, prisoners crushed and sorted uranium ore by hand, without protection, exposed to dust and radiation. Many died or suffered lasting illness. The building is now a memorial, part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage listing, and a powerful reminder of the human cost of the Cold War.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Red Tower of Death comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Žatec.
The smell gives Žatec away in late summer. The fields around this small town in northwestern Bohemia are planted with hops, tall green vines climbing up wires on wooden poles, and when harvest comes in August, the air fills with their resinous, slightly bitter scent. Saaz hops, named after the German form of the town's name, have been prized by brewers for centuries for their fine aroma, and they are a key ingredient in Czech pilsner lagers. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops, recognising the town's hop warehouses, drying kilns, packing houses and the surrounding hop gardens as a unique agricultural and industrial heritage.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Žatec. Next is Krupka Mining Landscape.
Krupka is a hillside mining town stuck to the foot of the Ore Mountains, and it wears its history quietly. The town sits a short climb above the plain near Teplice and Ústí nad Labem in the north of Bohemia, with the ridge of the Krušné hory rising behind. Tin was dug here for a very long time, and the shafts and spoil heaps scattered around the slopes are what UNESCO recognised in 2019 when it listed the Ore Mountains mining region, a landscape shared with Saxony on the German side. Marienberg, on the far side of the border, belongs to the same story.
Read the complete Krupka Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Krupka Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is Dresden Elbe Valley.
Dresden's Elbe valley once held a World Heritage listing and then lost it. Inscribed in 2004 for its blend of Baroque city, river meadows, palaces and vineyards, it was removed from the list in 2009 after the city built the Waldschlösschen bridge across the meadows, a decision that sparked fierce debate. The landscape itself, however, remains beautiful: the river curves through wide green meadows, with the domes and spires of the old town on one side and the villas and vineyards of the Loschwitz slopes on the other.
Read the complete Dresden Elbe Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dresden Elbe Valley sits at 207 km, about halfway. Next is back through Krupka Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Krupka Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Krupka Mining Landscape comes up about 282 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Žatec.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 337 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Žatec. Next is back through The Red Tower of Death.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Red Tower of Death, late in the day. Next is Buchholz Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Buchholz Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 439 km.
Buchholz Mining Landscape → The Red Tower of Death is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Red Tower of Death → Žatec is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Žatec → Krupka Mining Landscape is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Krupka Mining Landscape → Dresden Elbe Valley is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dresden Elbe Valley → back through Krupka Mining Landscape is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Krupka Mining Landscape → back through Žatec is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Žatec → back through The Red Tower of Death is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Red Tower of Death → Buchholz Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.