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.
596 km from Emden to Emden, about 9 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Key Planning Decision, National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen, Wadden Sea and back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen. It crosses from Germany into Netherlands - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Where the Ems river meets the sea near Emden, the land runs out of ideas. East Frisia is flat and wide, laced with dykes, drainage ditches and wind turbines, and the horizon is a ruler line drawn under a very large sky. The label here is an administrative one, a planning decision, so it points to no single monument. What it describes is the landscape around the Dollart bay and the Wadden Sea shore west of Emden, where the sea has repeatedly eaten into the land and been pushed back by people with spades and later with machines.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision is where the day begins. Next is Key Planning Decision.
The name on the map is bureaucratic, but the place is anything but. Key Planning Decision is a translation of the Dutch legal designation used to protect the Wadden Sea, and the spot here sits on the coast near Delfzijl, at the eastern edge of the province of Groningen, where the Dutch Wadden meets the estuary of the Ems. The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken system of tidal flats in the world, stretching along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2009.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen.
Behind the dyke at Dornumersiel the land is flatter than a billiard table and nearly as green, and on the other side the sea comes and goes twice a day across a vast expanse of sand and mud. This is the Wadden Sea, the largest system of intertidal flats in the world, stretching along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. The Lower Saxony section is a national park and part of a World Heritage site, and at low tide you can walk out across the seabed towards the East Frisian islands, ideally with a guide who knows the channels and the tides.
Read the complete National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 159 km into the recorded legs you reach National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen.
At low tide, the sea simply leaves. Twice a day the North Sea withdraws from the Wadden Sea, exposing vast flats of mud and sand, channels and banks, where birds feed by the hundreds of thousands and seals haul out to rest. The Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park protects this coast, and together with the Dutch and Danish parts it forms the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2009.
Read the complete National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen, about halfway. Next is Wadden Sea.
Where the Weser river widens into the North Sea at Bremerhaven, the land and water merge into one of the strangest landscapes in Europe. The Wadden Sea, a shallow stretch of sand and mud flats running from the Netherlands past Germany to Denmark, is the largest unbroken system of tidal flats in the world, and UNESCO protects it as a World Heritage Site. Twice a day the sea retreats, leaving a gleaming plain that birds, seals and worms use as a feeding ground, and twice a day it comes back, quickly and quietly.
Read the complete Wadden Sea write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wadden Sea sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen comes up about 320 km into the recorded legs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 434 km into the recorded legs you reach back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen. Next is back through Key Planning Decision.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Key Planning Decision, late in the day.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 596 km.
Key Planning Decision → Key Planning Decision is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Key Planning Decision → National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen is 130 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen → National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen is 114 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen → Wadden Sea is 23 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Wadden Sea → back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen → back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen is 114 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen → back through Key Planning Decision is 129 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Key Planning Decision → Key Planning Decision is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.