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.
From Walldürn it runs 420 km to Walldürn; allow about 6 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Fortlet Lehnenwiesen, Building remains south of the watchtower W, Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch and Lone Valley. It follows river valleys.
Walldürn sits on the high, rolling plateau where the Odenwald meets the Bauland, a gentle landscape of fields, woods and small towns in the northeast of Baden-Württemberg. The Romans came here in the second century AD, when the Upper German Limes was pushed forward to a new line running almost straight through the countryside, and they built a small fort at Walldürn with a civil settlement beside it, where soldiers' families, traders and craftsmen lived. The remains of a bath house have been excavated and conserved, and the line of the frontier, with its watchtowers and palisade, runs nearby. The Upper German-Raetian Limes, more than five hundred kilometres long, became a UNESCO site in 2005.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn is where the day begins. Next is Fortlet Lehnenwiesen.
Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, was born in Jagsthausen around 1480, and he is remembered for a rude phrase he supposedly shouted at an enemy, made famous by Goethe in his play about the knight. Jagsthausen's castle, where Götz grew up, hosts an open-air theatre festival every summer, and the iron hand, a prosthesis he wore after losing his right hand in battle, is displayed there. A few kilometres away, in the fields near Widdern, the fortlet of Lehnenwiesen was a small Roman post on the Upper Germanic Limes, part of the chain of forts and watchtowers that ran through this landscape.
Read the complete Fortlet Lehnenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Building remains south of the watchtower W.
Mainhardt sits high in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, between Heilbronn and Schwäbisch Hall, on a wooded plateau that the Romans chose for one of the forts guarding their frontier. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes runs through here on its long, ruler-straight stretch heading south towards Welzheim, and along it stood watchtowers every few hundred metres, with small buildings nearby for the soldiers who manned them. The remains south of one of these towers are modest, low foundations in a clearing or under the forest floor, but they are part of the World Heritage frontier that runs for more than five hundred kilometres across Germany. The village has a small Roman museum that explains the fort and its garrison.
Read the complete Building remains south of the watchtower W write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Building remains south of the watchtower W. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.
Lorch, in the Rems valley east of Stuttgart, sits on a historic seam. Just outside town, the Upper German Limes, which ran as a palisade and ditch from the Rhine, met the Raetian Limes, the stone wall running east to the Danube, and the Romans built a fort here to watch over that junction and the valley road. The fort lay beneath what is now the old town centre, and its outline, together with traces of the civilian settlement that grew around it, is marked in places in the streets. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site, and a reconstructed watchtower stands on a hill nearby.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch, 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 182 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch comes up about 287 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Building remains south of the watchtower W.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Building remains south of the watchtower W write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 337 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Building remains south of the watchtower W. Next is back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet Lehnenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen, late in the day. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 420 km.
Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn → Fortlet Lehnenwiesen is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen → Building remains south of the watchtower W is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Building remains south of the watchtower W → Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch → Lone Valley is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lone Valley → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch → back through Building remains south of the watchtower W is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Building remains south of the watchtower W → back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen → Fort site and civil settlement of Walldürn is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.