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 352 km round trip from Freiberg - roughly 6 h 40 in the saddle. On the way it passes Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works, Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape, The Red Tower of Death and Mariánské Lázne. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 62 km this is Castle Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Silver was found near Freiberg in 1168, and within a few decades the town had become one of the richest in Saxony. For eight centuries, miners dug ever deeper into the hills, and the wealth they brought up paid for churches, palaces and the splendours of Dresden. Freiberg's Bergakademie, founded in 1765, is the oldest mining university in the world still operating, and its mineral collection is one of the finest anywhere. The town and its mining landscape are part of the Erzgebirge mining region listed by UNESCO, shared between Germany and the Czech Republic.
Read the complete Freiberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Freiberg Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works.
Down in the valley of the Flöha, on the edge of Olbernhau, stands an industrial village that looks almost too neat to be real: slate-roofed workshops, a hammer mill, workers' houses and a stout gatehouse, all enclosed within a wall. This is the Saigerhütte Grünthal, a works that separated silver from copper ore by a technique called liquation, and it is one of the best preserved sites of its kind in Europe. It forms part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, listed by UNESCO in 2019 for both the German and Czech sides of the range.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape.
Silver built Annaberg. In the late fifteenth century rich silver ore was found in the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains on the border between Saxony and Bohemia, and a town was founded almost overnight in 1496 to house the miners. Within a few decades Annaberg was one of the largest towns in Saxony, and its wealth paid for the St. Annenkirche, one of the most beautiful late Gothic hall churches in Germany, with slender pillars branching into a star-ribbed vault like the trunks of trees.
Read the complete Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape. Next is The Red Tower of Death.
The name sounds like a horror film, and the reality was grim enough. In the 1950s, the communist government of Czechoslovakia sent tens of thousands of political prisoners to labour camps in the Jáchymov region to mine uranium for the Soviet nuclear programme. In a red brick building near Ostrov, known as the Red Tower of Death, prisoners crushed and sorted uranium ore by hand, without protection, exposed to dust and radiation. Many died or suffered lasting illness. The building is now a memorial, part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage listing, and a powerful reminder of the human cost of the Cold War.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Red Tower of Death, about halfway. Next is Mariánské Lázne.
Goethe fell in love here when he was already in his seventies. In the summer of 1821 and the years that followed, the poet spent his holidays in Marienbad, the spa town now known as Mariánské Lázně, and fell for Ulrike von Levetzow, a young woman of nineteen; his proposal was declined, and on the journey home he wrote the Marienbad Elegy, one of his most moving poems. The town was then at the height of its fame as one of the great spas of Europe, visited by kings, emperors and artists, from Edward VII of Britain to Chopin and Kafka.
Read the complete Mariánské Lázne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mariánské Lázne sits at 176 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Red Tower of Death.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Red Tower of Death comes up about 237 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 277 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape. Next is back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works, late in the day. Next is Freiberg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Freiberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 352 km.
Freiberg Mining Landscape → Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape → The Red Tower of Death is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Red Tower of Death → Mariánské Lázne is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mariánské Lázne → back through The Red Tower of Death is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Red Tower of Death → back through Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Annaberg-Frohnau Mining Landscape → back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Freiberg Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.