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.
From Longwy it runs 327 km to Longwy; allow about 4 h 45 of riding. It goes by way of City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F, Igel Column, Moselle Bridge and back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F. It crosses France, Luxembourg and Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The ride follows Luxembourg Mullerthal Route for 40 km.
For about 38 km this is Luxembourg Mullerthal Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
In 1678, after Louis XIV won Longwy from the Spanish Netherlands in the Treaty of Nijmegen, he sent his great military engineer Vauban to make sure nobody took it back. Vauban did not just fortify the old town; he built a new one, Longwy-Haut, on the plateau, designing a star-shaped stronghold with bastions, ditches and a geometric grid of streets around a central square with a well and church. It is one of the twelve sites grouped as the Fortifications of Vauban on the World Heritage list, and walking the ramparts you can still read the logic of seventeenth-century siege warfare in the earth and stone.
Read the complete La place forte de Longwy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La place forte de Longwy is where the day begins. Next is City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F.
Luxembourg City is built on a rocky plateau above the deep, green valleys of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers, and for centuries it was one of the most powerful fortresses in Europe, nicknamed the Gibraltar of the North. Spanish, French, Austrian and Prussian armies all held it, and each added to its walls, bastions and tunnels. In 1867, after an international treaty, most of the fortifications were dismantled, but enough remains to make the old quarters and fortifications a UNESCO World Heritage site, inscribed in 1994.
Read the complete City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Igel Column.
The Igel Column is one of those Roman monuments that seems to have survived by a happy accident. It stands in the village of Igel, on the Moselle a few kilometres upstream from Trier, a sandstone pillar some twenty-three metres high, covered with carved scenes. It was built in the third century as a funerary monument for the Secundinii, a family of wealthy cloth merchants, and the reliefs show them at work: bales of cloth being loaded and transported, customers being received, and a family meal, as well as mythological scenes on the upper sections. In the Middle Ages, people came to believe it showed the marriage of Constantine's mother, St Helena, which probably saved it from being broken up for building stone.
Read the complete Igel Column write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Igel Column.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F, about halfway. Next is Moselle Bridge.
A Roman bridge still carries traffic across the Moselle at Trier, and that is not a figure of speech. The stone piers of the Romerbrucke, the old bridge in the centre of town, date to the second century AD, which makes it the oldest bridge north of the Alps, and cars, cyclists and pedestrians cross it every day on a road deck rebuilt many times over. Trier itself was founded as Augusta Treverorum in the reign of Augustus, grew into one of the great cities of the western empire, and served for a time as an imperial residence. The Emperor Constantine had a basilica built here, still standing with its great hall, and a monumental gate made of dark sandstone, the Porta Nigra, has dominated the northern entrance of the town for eighteen centuries.
Read the complete Moselle Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Moselle Bridge sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F comes up about 213 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Igel Column.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Igel Column write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 251 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Igel Column.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F, late in the day. Next is La place forte de Longwy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La place forte de Longwy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 327 km.
La place forte de Longwy → City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → Igel Column is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Igel Column → City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → Moselle Bridge is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Moselle Bridge → back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → back through Igel Column is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Igel Column → back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and F → La place forte de Longwy is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.