Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen and Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen

   The Swabian-Franconian Forest is a country of ridges and ravines northeast of Stuttgart, and the Mainhardt area lies on its northern edge, where the hills drop to wide clearings of meadow. The Romans pushed their frontier through here in the second century, building a line of watchtowers, small forts and a wooden palisade, and at Mainhardt they placed a larger fort, with smaller fortlets such as the one at Herrenwiesen along the frontier line. A fortlet was a compact post for a handful of soldiers who watched the forest, signalled to the next tower and checked travellers at the border.

   Read the complete Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/100.

2. 2. Watchtowers WP 9/100

   The Limes in the Swabian-Franconian Forest has a quality that surprises people who expect Roman walls to follow hills: it runs in a dead-straight line, for kilometres at a stretch, regardless of what stands in the way. Near Murrhardt the line dives through woodland and valleys, and the signposted watchtower sites mark points where a timber and later stone tower stood on the frontier, with a ditch and a palisade or bank beside it. The numbering, with its slash, comes from the nineteenth-century surveyors who first mapped the frontier, and archaeologists still use it.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/100 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Watchtowers WP 9/100 comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 9/100.

4. 4. back through Watchtowers WP 9/100

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/100 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 9/100, late in the day. Next is Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen.

5. 5. Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Fortlet Mainhardt-Herrenwiesen. That is the ride.