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 327 km round trip from Arzbach - roughly 6 h 16 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22, Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof, Iversheim and Köln-Praetorium. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 32 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Arzbach sits a few kilometres north of the Lahn, in the wooded Westerwald hills behind Bad Ems, and it is one of those places where the Roman Empire left a mark you have to squint to see. The fort and its civil settlement belonged to the Upper German-Raetian frontier, the Limes, which ran for hundreds of kilometres from the Rhine near Rheinbrohl all the way to the Danube. Here it was a ditch, a rampart and a timber palisade, studded with watchtowers within sight of one another. Nothing grand survives above ground in the village itself. What you get is the lie of the land: a ridge chosen because a sentry could see from it, and a settlement that grew beside the soldiers because soldiers need bread, boots and beer.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22.
Above Leutesdorf, on the right bank of the Rhine between Neuwied and Bad Hönningen, the hills climb steeply from the river, covered with vineyards and forests, and the Roman frontier ran along their crest. Watchtowers WP 1/21 and 1/22 stood here in the early part of the Upper Germanic Limes, just a few kilometres from its starting point at Rheinbrohl, watching over the valley and the lands beyond. Today the tower sites are quiet spots in the woods, part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
There is very little to see at first glance here, which is exactly what makes the place oddly moving. South of Bonn, in the edge of the Kottenforst near the Heiderhof quarter of Bad Godesberg and the town of Wachtberg, the forest floor hides the faint outlines of Roman practice camps. Legionaries stationed at the fortress of Bonna on the Rhine marched out here to train at the hard, boring work that won the empire its wars: digging ditches, throwing up earth ramparts and laying out a camp to the standard plan in a few hours. A handful of these training camps in the Kottenforst are part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is Iversheim.
Iversheim is a village in the valley of the Erft, at the northern edge of the Eifel, just downstream from the old spa town of Bad Münstereifel. It is known for one thing: a Roman lime-burning works, one of the best preserved in Europe. The Romans built a series of kilns here to burn limestone from the surrounding hills into quicklime, which was used to make mortar for the forts, towns and roads of the province of Lower Germany. The kilns were worked by detachments of soldiers from the Rhine legions, as inscriptions found on the site show.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iversheim, about halfway. Next is Köln-Praetorium.
Under Cologne's town hall there is a Roman palace, and you can walk through it. The Praetorium was the residence of the governor of the province of Lower Germany, a large building complex on the edge of the Rhine that dates from the first century and grew over the next few hundred years. The city, called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, was founded in the first century AD and named for Agrippina, the mother of the emperor Nero, who was born in a camp nearby. The remains of the palace were found during rebuilding after the Second World War, and the cellars and corridors are now open as an archaeological site.
Read the complete Köln-Praetorium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Köln-Praetorium sits at 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Iversheim.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iversheim comes up about 216 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 253 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22, late in the day. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 327 km.
Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach → Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 → Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → Iversheim is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iversheim → Köln-Praetorium is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Köln-Praetorium → back through Iversheim is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iversheim → back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → back through Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/21 to 1/22 → Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.