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.
308 km from Weißenburg in Bayern to Weißenburg in Bayern, about 5 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53, Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a, Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 and Lone Valley. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
Not every Roman fort on the frontier was a great stone fortress. Some were small, temporary or quickly abandoned, and the fort site of Oberhochstatt, on the high plateau above Weißenburg in Bavaria, seems to have been one of these, a modest garrison post on the Raetian Limes. There is little to see today beyond a field, perhaps an information board and the outline of the defences in the grass. But the landscape around is full of Roman history, and the town of Weißenburg, a short ride away, is one of the best places in Germany to experience it.
Read the complete Fort site of Oberhochstatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site of Oberhochstatt is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53.
In the Altmühl country around Gunzenhausen the Roman frontier is a wall rather than a fence. Far to the west it was a timber palisade, earth bank and ditch, but from the edge of the Swabian Alb eastward the Romans replaced it with something sturdier, a stone wall that runs for many kilometres across Bavaria, which locals later nicknamed the Devil's Wall, the Teufelsmauer, because it seemed too big to have been made by men. The watchtowers numbered 13/51 to 13/53 belong to that stone-wall stretch, and they were small square towers of stone or timber that stood just behind the line, with a view over the valley and the next tower in the chain.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a.
In the fields near Wilburgstetten, in the west of Franconia, a low ridge runs across the landscape, overgrown with grass and bushes. It looks like nothing much, but it is the remains of the Raetian Limes, the stone wall that marked the frontier of the Roman province of Raetia in the second and third centuries. Unlike the Upper German Limes to the north west, which was mostly a palisade and ditch, the Raetian section was eventually built as a continuous stone wall, more than a hundred and sixty kilometres long. Local people later called it the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing it could only have been built by supernatural forces. The section between watchtowers here is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68.
The Roman frontier wall known as the Limes ran for more than five hundred kilometres across what is now southern Germany, from the Rhine to the Danube, and near Aalen it passed through the Kocher valley and over the hills of the Ostalb. Along its length, watchtowers were built at regular intervals, numbered by archaeologists in sequence: WP 12/60 to 12/68 are a group of tower sites near Hüttlingen, mostly now visible as low mounds or reconstructed foundations. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes was inscribed by UNESCO in 2005 as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68, 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 160 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 comes up about 208 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 246 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53, late in the day. Next is Fort site of Oberhochstatt.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site of Oberhochstatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 308 km.
Fort site of Oberhochstatt → Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 → Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a → Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 → Lone Valley is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lone Valley → back through Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/60 to 12/68 → back through Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a → back through Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/51 to 13/53 → Fort site of Oberhochstatt is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.