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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Eichstätt it runs 353 km to Eichstätt; allow about 6 h 05 of riding. It goes by way of Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb, Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40, Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for and Lone Valley. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 40 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Above the village of Pfünz, on a spur of white Jura limestone looking down into the Altmühl valley, the Romans built a fort they called Vetoniana. Today a reconstructed gate and a stretch of wall stand on the hilltop, and from up there you understand the choice at once: the valley floor curls below you, the river meanders slowly, and anyone moving along it would have been seen hours before they arrived.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz is where the day begins. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb.
Under the modern town of Weißenburg, in Franconia, lie the remains of a Roman fort called Biriciana, and it holds one of the best finds of the frontier. The fort was built in the second century to guard the line of the Raetian Limes, and a civil settlement grew up next to it, and in the third century it had a bathhouse that is the best preserved Roman bath north of the Alps. The walls of the baths still stand to a good height, with the heating system, the changing rooms and the pools, and a modern building protects them. Next to the baths is a museum, which holds a hoard of silver and bronze objects found in 1979 during building work, including statuettes of gods that were buried in a pit, probably to hide them.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40.
In the rolling country of Middle Franconia, between Gunzenhausen and Wassertrüdingen, the Raetian Limes ran as a stone wall rather than a wooden palisade. Local people later called its remains the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing no human could have built such a long barrier. The section near watchtower WP 13/40, close to Arberg and Ornbau, is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage Site, and in places a low bank of stones in the fields and woods still marks the line.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for.
Near Rainau, not far from here, the Romans built a monumental gate in the Raetian Limes, a showpiece entrance probably connected with a visit by the emperor Caracalla in the early third century. Today the Limestor Dalkingen is protected under a glass and steel shelter, an impressive sight. The watchtowers numbered in this section, around Stödtlen, Wört and Tannhausen, were part of the same frontier, which ran here as a stone wall across the hilly country between the Ries crater and the Swabian Forest, toward the Danube.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for, about halfway. Next is Lone Valley.
The Lone is a small river in the Swabian Jura, east of Ulm, that often vanishes underground in dry weather, slipping into the limestone and leaving its bed empty. Its quiet valley, flanked by wooded slopes and limestone cliffs, holds caves where some of the oldest figurative art in the world was found. In the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave, fragments of a figure carved from mammoth ivory were pieced together into the Lion Man, a being with a human body and a lion's head, around forty thousand years old. In the Vogelherd cave, tiny ivory animals, a horse, a mammoth, a cave lion, emerged from the sediment.
Read the complete Lone Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lone Valley sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for comes up about 243 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 283 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb, late in the day. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 353 km.
Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz → Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb → Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 → Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for → Lone Valley is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Lone Valley → back through Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/86 to 13/5 including for → back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 13/40 → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Weissenb → Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.