Fort site of Burgsalach and Lone Valley

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Fort site of Burgsalach

   The small fortlet at Burgsalach stood on the Raetian Limes, the eastern section of Rome's frontier in Germany. Dating from a late phase of the frontier, it had walls of stone and was compact and well defended, more like a small castle than the usual timber watchtower, and its name lives on in the village of Burgsalach nearby. The outline of the walls can still be traced on the ground, and like the rest of the frontier it is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Here, in the hills of Middle Franconia, the Raetian Limes was not a palisade but a stone wall, which local legend later attributed to the Devil himself, calling it the Teufelsmauer.

   Read the complete Fort site of Burgsalach write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Fort site of Burgsalach is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15.

2. 2. Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15

   Dinkelsbühl looks like a stage set, and the people who live there have worked hard to keep it that way. The old town, with its ring of walls, towers and gates, its half-timbered houses and the huge Gothic church of St George, survived the wars and the bombing that destroyed so many German towns, and it is one of the best preserved medieval towns on the Romantic Road. Each July the Kinderzeche, a festival that recalls the story of local children who saved the town during the Thirty Years' War, fills the streets with costumes and music.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lone Valley.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 142 km into the recorded legs you reach Lone Valley. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15.

4. 4. back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15, late in the day. Next is Fort site of Burgsalach.

5. 5. Fort site of Burgsalach

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fort site of Burgsalach write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Fort site of Burgsalach. That is the ride.