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.
316 km from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, about 4 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Rose Island, Water Management System of Augsburg and back through Rose Island. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
For about 81 km this is German Alpine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
76 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it. Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
This is one of the few royal residences in Europe that you cannot reach by any road, and King Ludwig II of Bavaria would have liked it that way. The King's House on Schachen stands on a high alpine meadow at about 1,866 metres in the Wetterstein mountains, south of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, below the jagged walls of the range that culminates in the Zugspitze. Ludwig had it built between 1869 and 1872 as a mountain retreat, and from the outside it looks like a modest Swiss chalet. Inside, upstairs, is a fantasy: the Turkish Hall, a room of blue, gold and red, with a fountain, peacock-feather fans, divans and stained glass, where the king liked to celebrate his birthday dressed in oriental costume while his servants smoked hookahs.
Read the complete King's House on Schachen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
King's House on Schachen is where the day begins. Next is Rose Island.
Lake Starnberg, south-west of Munich, is the lake where Bavaria's Fairy Tale King met his end. Ludwig II drowned in its waters near Berg in 1886, in circumstances that are still debated, and a cross stands in the lake where his body was found. On the opposite shore, near Feldafing, lies the small Roseninsel, or Rose Island, the only island in the lake. Ludwig's father Maximilian II had a little villa built there, surrounded by a rose garden, and Ludwig used it as a retreat, sometimes meeting his cousin, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, who spent her childhood at nearby Possenhofen.
Read the complete Rose Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rose Island comes up about 81 km into the recorded legs. Next is Water Management System of Augsburg.
Augsburg was a Roman town, a medieval free imperial city and the home of the fabulously rich Fugger banking family, but the thing that held it all together was water. Over the centuries, the city built an intricate network of canals fed by the Lech and Wertach rivers, water towers, pumping stations and fountains, supplying clean drinking water to the citizens and power to mills and workshops. The system was so advanced that UNESCO inscribed it in 2019, recognising twenty-two sites, from the water towers at the Red Gate, dating back to the fifteenth century, to the great Renaissance fountains dedicated to Augustus, Mercury and Hercules on the main street.
Read the complete Water Management System of Augsburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Water Management System of Augsburg. Next is back through Rose Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rose Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rose Island, late in the day. Next is King's House on Schachen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete King's House on Schachen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at King's House on Schachen. That is the ride.
King's House on Schachen → Rose Island is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rose Island → Water Management System of Augsburg is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Water Management System of Augsburg → back through Rose Island is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Rose Island → King's House on Schachen is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.