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 325 km round trip from Karlovy Vary - roughly 6 h 01 in the saddle. The stops in between: Mědník Hill Mining Landscape, Rother Berg Mining Landscape, Lauta Mining Landscape and Freiberg Mining Landscape. It crosses from Czechia into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 41 km this is Castle Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Legend has it that Emperor Charles IV was out hunting in the forests of western Bohemia in the fourteenth century when a stag he was chasing, or in some versions one of his hounds, fell into a pool of scalding water, and that is how the hot springs of Karlovy Vary were found. Whatever the truth, the town that grew up around them bears his name, Karlsbad in German, and by the nineteenth century it had become one of the most fashionable spas in Europe, visited by tsars, composers, poets and the cream of European society. In 2021, it became part of the UNESCO listing of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Karlovy Vary is where the day begins. Next is Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Mědník is a small, steep hill on the Czech side of the Ore Mountains, or Krušné hory, the range that forms the border between Bohemia and Saxony. It rises above the village of Měděnec, whose name, like the hill's, comes from the Czech word for copper. For centuries, miners tunnelled into the hill for copper and iron ore, and the hill is now part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as a cross-border site.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Schwarzenberg, in the western Erzgebirge, is a town of steep streets, slate roofs and a castle and church perched on a rock above the Schwarzwasser river, and the hills around it are riddled with old mine workings. The Rother Berg, the red mountain, takes its name from the iron ore that colours its soil, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border UNESCO site listed in 2019. For eight centuries, miners in these mountains dug for silver, tin, iron, cobalt and later uranium, and their work shaped not only the landscape but the culture of the whole region.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Rother Berg Mining Landscape. Next is Lauta Mining Landscape.
Marienberg was laid out in 1521 as a planned silver town, with a vast square market place and streets set in a grid, an idea of urban order that was new in this part of Europe. Lauta, today a district of Marienberg, lies among the old mine workings, spoil heaps and shafts that fed that wealth, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border World Heritage Site shared by Saxony and the Czech Republic and inscribed in 2019.
Read the complete Lauta Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lauta Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is Freiberg Mining Landscape.
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 sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lauta Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lauta Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lauta Mining Landscape comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 245 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape. Next is back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape, late in the day. Next is Karlovy Vary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 325 km.
Karlovy Vary → Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape → Lauta Mining Landscape is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lauta Mining Landscape → Freiberg Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Freiberg Mining Landscape → back through Lauta Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lauta Mining Landscape → back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape → back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → Karlovy Vary is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.