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 Bad Schwalbach it runs 314 km to Bad Schwalbach; allow about 5 h 36 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, Watchtower WP 1/39, Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort and Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 33 km this is Rhine Romantic Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The western Taunus is wonderfully empty. Away from the commuter belt around Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, the hills north of Bad Schwalbach turn into a quiet patchwork of forest, small meadows and villages in the Heidenrod municipality, and right through the middle runs the Limes. Today you find grassy outlines, a few markers and the bank and ditch disappearing into the beech woods.
Read the complete Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
WP 2/5 and 2/6 sound like spare parts, but they are the numbers archaeologists gave to two watchtower positions on the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the fortified frontier Rome drew across southern Germany. Here, in the hills above the Lahn near Bad Ems, the line ran up from the Rhine and over the high ground, and every few hundred metres a tower stood with a view to the next. Today most of what survives are low mounds, traces of the bank and ditch, and in some places a reconstructed tower to give you scale. The whole frontier became part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2005.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower WP 1/39.
This single tower, WP 1/39, belongs to a stretch of the Upper German-Raetian Limes that runs close to Rengsdorf and Melsbach, on a gently rolling shoulder of the Westerwald. Unlike many of its neighbours it has been marked and reconstructed in a way that lets you see how it might have looked, with a timber tower over a stone base, and a cleared line of sight in each direction. The towers were usually just a few metres square, with a lookout floor on top and a ladder you could pull up. A handful of soldiers at most would have lived in one, which gives you a sense of scale: it was a sentry post, not a castle.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtower WP 1/39. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort.
Between the Lahn and the Rhine, the Roman frontier crossed a high, wooded plateau known locally as the Einrich, and the watchtowers from 2/7 to 2/13 stood on this stretch, near the village of Dachsenhausen. In the forest, the earth bank and ditch can still be followed, and small forts, built to house the soldiers who manned the towers, have left their outlines in the ground. Here, as elsewhere in Germany, the Limes belongs to the frontiers of the Roman Empire on the World Heritage list, but the forest is quiet, and you may walk the line for an hour without meeting anyone.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo.
The Roman frontier in Germany, the Limes, begins at the Rhine near Rheinbrohl, and a few kilometres upstream the town of Neuwied sits on the river, its district of Heddesdorf lying on the site of a Roman auxiliary fort. The fort was one of a chain of garrison posts in the Neuwied basin, a wide, fertile bowl of the Rhine valley with a mild climate, and the soldiers who lived here controlled the river crossing and the road toward the frontier. A civil settlement, a vicus, grew beside the fort, with traders, craftsmen and families. Nothing stands today above ground, because the fort lies under houses and streets, and what survives is documented in the finds in the local museum, in markers and in the street plan.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo sits at 138 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort comes up about 194 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Watchtower WP 1/39.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Watchtower WP 1/39. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, late in the day. Next is Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 314 km.
Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se → Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Watchtower WP 1/39 is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 1/39 → Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort → Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Heddesdo → back through Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/7 and 2/13 including fort → back through Watchtower WP 1/39 is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 1/39 → back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.