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.
A 377 km round trip from Hungen - roughly 5 h 41 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort, Watchtowers WP 3/23, Fortlet of Pfarrhofen and Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Hungen lies in the eastern Wetterau, on the edge of the Vogelsberg, the great extinct volcano of central Hesse, and the village of Inheiden is a short distance from it, in a fold of rolling farmland. The Roman fort at Inheiden was one of the smaller auxiliary forts on the Wetterau Limes, a modest rectangular enclosure with a ditch and a wall of earth and timber, later rebuilt in stone, and it held a unit of a few hundred soldiers. A fort of this size had a headquarters building in the middle, barracks, a granary, a bath building outside the wall and a small settlement of traders and families beside it.
Read the complete Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Kaiser Wilhelm II took a personal interest in the Roman frontier, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, he ordered the complete reconstruction of the Saalburg, a Roman fort on the crest of the Taunus near Bad Homburg. The result, with its walls, gates and buildings rebuilt on the original foundations, is the most complete reconstruction of a Roman fort in Germany and houses a museum of Roman life on the frontier. A few kilometres north-east, near Rosbach vor der Höhe, the ruins of the Kapersburg fort lie in the forest, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/1 to 4/19a, on the section of the Limes running from the Taunus ridge toward the Wetterau, are part of the UNESCO listing of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 3/23.
Idstein sits in a bowl of the Taunus hills north of Wiesbaden, and its centre is among the best-kept half-timbered towns in Hesse. The Killinger House, a tall timber-framed building with elaborate carving, is the showpiece, and the Witches' Tower, a stone remnant of the old castle, stands above the old town as a reminder of a darker chapter. The Roman Limes passes through the hills just to the north, and Watchtower 3/23 is one of many positions on the ridge, part of the line that ran for about five hundred kilometres across Germany.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 118 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 3/23. Next is Fortlet of Pfarrhofen.
In the second century, the Roman frontier in Germany ran across the hills of the Taunus north of the Rhine as a line of wooden palisades, ditches, earth banks, watchtowers and forts, stretching over five hundred kilometres from the Rhine to the Danube. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, as it is called, is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, listed by UNESCO in 2005, and the fortlet of Pfarrhofen, near Holzhausen an der Haide in the western Taunus, is one of the many small installations along its course. A fortlet was a small fort with a garrison of a few dozen men, guarding a road crossing or a section of the frontier between larger forts.
Read the complete Fortlet of Pfarrhofen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet of Pfarrhofen, about halfway. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66.
The Westerwald is a low, rain-washed plateau of beech, meadow and clay pits, and the Roman Limes cut straight across it. This stretch, marked by the surveyors' numbers for two watchtowers, lies close to Höhr-Grenzhausen, where the Limes was a palisade and ditch with timber towers every few hundred metres, replaced later by stone. You will not find tall walls. What you find is a gentle bank in the woods, a mound where a tower stood, and a signpost telling you that soldiers once watched the horizon from this exact spot.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66 sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fortlet of Pfarrhofen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet of Pfarrhofen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortlet of Pfarrhofen comes up about 236 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 3/23.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 291 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Watchtowers WP 3/23. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort, late in the day. Next is Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 377 km.
Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden → Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Watchtowers WP 3/23 is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 3/23 → Fortlet of Pfarrhofen is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet of Pfarrhofen → Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/67 to 1/66 → back through Fortlet of Pfarrhofen is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortlet of Pfarrhofen → back through Watchtowers WP 3/23 is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/23 → back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Fort site of Hungen-Inheiden is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.