Kottenforst Nord | Domhecken 3 and Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
112 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 30
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
From Alfter it runs 112 km to Alfter; allow about 2 h 30 of riding. It goes by way of Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof, Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 and back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Kottenforst Nord | Domhecken 3
The Domhecken, the cathedral hedges, takes its name from the way the old hedgerows and tall trees here once met overhead like the roof of a church. The area in the northern Kottenforst, a short distance from the town of Alfter, is part of the great forest south-west of Bonn, and it carries the traces of old land use: hedge banks, ditches, boundary stones and long, straight forest roads laid out for hunting parties.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kottenforst Nord | Domhecken 3 is where the day begins. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
2. Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof
There is very little to see at first glance here, which is exactly what makes the place oddly moving. South of Bonn, in the edge of the Kottenforst near the Heiderhof quarter of Bad Godesberg and the town of Wachtberg, the forest floor hides the faint outlines of Roman practice camps. Legionaries stationed at the fortress of Bonna on the Rhine marched out here to train at the hard, boring work that won the empire its wars: digging ditches, throwing up earth ramparts and laying out a camp to the standard plan in a few hours. A handful of these training camps in the Kottenforst are part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2.
3. Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2
This is where it all begins, or ends, depending on which way you are walking. At Rheinbrohl, on the east bank of the Rhine between Bonn and Koblenz, the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes left the river and struck out across country, running more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube near Regensburg. The first watchtowers, numbered 1/1 and 1/2, stood here near the river, and the line can be followed into the hills from the edge of the village. The whole frontier is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and Rheinbrohl has a modern museum, the RömerWelt, which brings the frontier to life with reconstructions, exhibits and hands-on activities.