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.
326 km from Sulzbach am Main to Sulzbach am Main, about 5 h 04 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12, Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber, Watchtower WP 3/42* and Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
For one stretch of the Roman frontier in Germany, the soldiers did not need to build a wall at all. Between Großkrotzenburg and Miltenberg, the Main river itself served as the border, the so-called wet Limes, guarded by a chain of forts along its western bank. Niedernberg, a village on the river just below Aschaffenburg, was one of them, with a fort and a civilian settlement beside it. Little survives above ground today; the remains lie beneath fields and houses. But the Main still flows past, broad and slow, and it is easy to picture patrol boats and soldiers watching the far bank. The site is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12.
Between Hanau and the river Main, the plain is flat, fertile and dense with small towns, and it hardly looks like a frontier. Yet around the year 100 the Romans ran their Upper Germanic Limes down this way to meet the Main near Großkrotzenburg, with a palisade, ditch and a line of wooden watchtowers set at intervals of a few hundred metres. The towers on the maps are labelled by section and number, and WP 5/11 and 5/12 are two of them, neighbours in a long chain that once stretched across Germany for hundreds of kilometres.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber.
Friedberg's castle stands on a basalt ridge above the Wetterau, a walled enclosure so large it is almost a town of its own, with a tall round tower, the Adolfsturm, rising above the trees. What most visitors walking through the castle gate do not know is that they are standing on a Roman fort. The legions chose this same ridge in the first century AD, and a fort with a civil settlement grew up here, linked by road to the Limes a few kilometres to the north and west.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber. Next is Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Glashütten takes its name from the glass huts that worked in these forests in the Middle Ages, when the endless beech and oak of the high Taunus supplied fuel for the furnaces and potash for the glass. Today it is a quiet village spread over a saddle below the Großer Feldberg, at around 880 metres the highest summit in the Taunus, and the Roman frontier passes right by it. Watchtower 3/42 stood on this stretch of the Limes, where the bank and ditch run through the forest along the ridge; near the Feldberg summit, the remains of a small Roman fort, the Feldbergkastell, show where a garrison guarded a pass through the mountains.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/42*, about halfway. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just.
Bad Schwalbach is a spa town that never quite lost its nineteenth-century manners: a long, leafy valley, a Kurpark with pavilions, and iron-rich springs that once drew the fashionable from across Europe to take the waters. Just above it, on the high ground of the Taunus, the Roman frontier ran through the forests, and the stretch catalogued as watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 passes within a few kilometres of the town. Here the Upper German Limes followed the ridge, with wooden and later stone towers set at intervals within sight of one another, a palisade in front, and a ditch and bank added later. In the beech woods you can still trace the low line of the bank in places, a quiet scar running through the trees for kilometre after kilometre.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just sits at 148 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42* comes up about 196 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 239 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12, late in the day. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 326 km.
Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb → Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 → Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber → Watchtower WP 3/42* is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/42* → Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just → back through Watchtower WP 3/42* is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42* → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Friedber → back through Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 → Fort site and civil settlement of Niedernb is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.