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 276 km round trip from Uttenweiler - roughly 4 h 11 in the saddle. On the way it passes Schreckensee, Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen, Wangen-Hinterhorn and back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Grundwiesen → Schreckensee
33 km on Grundwiesen → Schreckensee.
Chapter facts
Length
33 km
Grand Tour of Switzerland
For about 63 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Chapter facts
Length
63 km
Named road
Grand Tour of Switzerland
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Grundwiesen
The Federsee is what remains of a much larger lake that filled the basin after the last ice age, and over thousands of years it silted up into a vast moor, one of the most important wetlands in southern Germany. Wet ground preserves things well, which is why this corner is a treasure chest for archaeology. People settled around the lake from the Stone Age on, building houses on timber foundations or on stilts, and the waterlogged soil has kept their wood, tools and even textiles in remarkable condition.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Grundwiesen is where the day begins. Next is Schreckensee.
2. Schreckensee
The Schreckensee, the lake of terror, is a disappointingly peaceful place for such a dramatic name. It is a small kettle lake in the moraine country of Upper Swabia, between Ravensburg and Aulendorf, left behind when a block of glacial ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Its shores, now partly bog and reed bed, hide the remains of prehistoric settlements, and it is one of the German sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As at most of these sites, nothing is visible on the surface; the timbers and household waste lie preserved underwater and in the peat, waiting for future archaeologists.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Schreckensee comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen.
3. Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen
Unteruhldingen is where most people first meet the prehistoric lake dwellers of the Alps, thanks to the Pfahlbaumuseum, an open-air museum of reconstructed houses on stilts standing in the shallow water of Lake Constance. It started in the 1920s and has been adding houses ever since, and walking along the wooden walkways between thatched huts gives you a vivid idea of village life thousands of years ago. The real archaeological sites, like Stollenwiesen just offshore, lie underwater, a series of settlements preserved in lake mud and listed by UNESCO in 2011 as part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. Next is Wangen-Hinterhorn.
4. Wangen-Hinterhorn
When the water of the Untersee, the western arm of Lake Constance, was unusually low in the winter of 1853 to 1854, people around the Swiss and German shores noticed wooden posts sticking out of the mud. They were the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, villages built on the lakeshore thousands of years ago, and the find sparked a wave of research and a craze for lake-dwelling romance across Europe. Wangen, on the German shore of the Untersee, was one of the first sites studied, and Wangen-Hinterhorn belongs to the World Heritage inscription for prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, though there is nothing to see above the water.