CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Schmitten it runs 235 km to Schmitten; allow about 3 h 42 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 3/23*, Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz, Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the and back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 26 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
If you want to know what a Roman frontier fort actually looked like, this is the place. The Saalburg, on the ridge of the Taunus above Bad Homburg, is the only Limes fort in Germany rebuilt in full: walls, gates, towers, granary and the headquarters building, all standing again on their original foundations. The reconstruction was ordered by Kaiser Wilhelm II around 1900, who liked his Romans grand and imperial, and while archaeologists today debate some details, walking through the main gate is still a jolt.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 3/23*.
On the wooded ridges near Idstein, the Taunus Limes crossed some of its highest and most remote ground, and Watchtower WP 3/23 is one of the many sites along this stretch. The asterisk in the official label suggests a site whose exact location is uncertain or reconstructed from survey work, which is common along the frontier, where many towers survive only as faint mounds in the forest. Still, walking the Limes trail here, with the bank and ditch running through the beech woods, gives a real sense of the Roman border.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/23* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/23* comes up 32 km in. Next is Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz.
Some of the gravestones on the sandy rise known in Mainz as the Judensand are close to a thousand years old. The oldest dated stone here goes back to the middle of the eleventh century, which makes this one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Together with sites in Speyer and Worms, Mainz formed the ShUM communities, centres of learning on the Rhine whose scholars shaped Ashkenazi Judaism for centuries, and in 2021 the three were listed together as a World Heritage Site. Mainz was Magenza in Hebrew, home to rabbis whose rulings were followed far beyond the Rhineland.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
64 km in you reach Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the.
West of the Taunus ridge, where the high country rolls down toward the Rhine gorge and the Lahn, the line of the Upper German Limes runs through farmland and forest near the villages of Holzhausen an der Haide, Katzenelnbogen and Nastätten. Archaeologists have catalogued the sites of the watchtowers along this stretch, numbered WP 2/35 to 2/48, and near Holzhausen are the remains of a stone fort, well preserved and easily visited, with its walls and gate outlines clear in the grass. The Limes here consisted of a palisade of wooden stakes, later backed by a ditch and bank, with watchtowers at regular intervals and forts a few kilometres behind. It formed the frontier of the Roman Empire for more than a century and a half.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the, about halfway. Next is back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz sits at 128 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/23*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/23* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/23* comes up 160 km in. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg closes the day.
Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg → Watchtower WP 3/23* is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/23* → Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz → Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/35 to 2/48 including the → back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz → back through Watchtower WP 3/23* is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/23* → Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.