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.
259 km from Annaberg-Buchholz to Annaberg-Buchholz, about 5 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, Schindlers Werk Smalt Works, Karlovy Vary and back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region.
The word dollar comes from these hills. In the early sixteenth century, a silver rush at Joachimsthal, today's Jáchymov, made the town one of the largest in Bohemia, and the coins minted there, the Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, gave their name to currencies around the world. The Erzgebirge, or Krušné hory, the Ore Mountains on the Czech-German border, were mined for silver, tin, cobalt, iron and finally uranium for eight centuries, and the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2019.
Read the complete Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
In the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains of Saxony, a handful of workshops once produced a colour that conquered Europe. Schindlers Werk, at Zschorlau near Aue, was a smalt works, where cobalt ore from the surrounding mines was ground, roasted and fused with sand and potash into a deep blue glass, then milled into pigment. Smalt coloured Dutch tiles, German porcelain and painters' blues, and Saxony held an almost complete monopoly on it for generations. The works was founded in the seventeenth century and has been preserved as a museum.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 66 km into the recorded legs you reach Schindlers Werk Smalt Works. Next is Karlovy Vary.
Legend has it that Emperor Charles IV was out hunting in the forests of western Bohemia in the fourteenth century when a stag he was chasing, or in some versions one of his hounds, fell into a pool of scalding water, and that is how the hot springs of Karlovy Vary were found. Whatever the truth, the town that grew up around them bears his name, Karlsbad in German, and by the nineteenth century it had become one of the most fashionable spas in Europe, visited by tsars, composers, poets and the cream of European society. In 2021, it became part of the UNESCO listing of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Karlovy Vary, about halfway. Next is back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region comes up about 226 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Buchholz Mining Landscape closes the day.
Buchholz Mining Landscape → Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region → Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Karlovy Vary is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Karlovy Vary → back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region → Buchholz Mining Landscape is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.