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.
168 km from Bad Hönningen to Bad Hönningen, about 3 h 04 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 1/51, Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen and back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 32 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Two thousand years ago, the frontier of the Roman Empire in Germany began right here. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, a line of watchtowers, forts, palisades and ditches stretching more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube, started on the right bank of the Rhine at Rheinbrohl, and the watchtowers numbered WP 1/1 and onwards marched away from the river into the wooded hills. This little section between Rheinbrohl and Bad Hönningen is the very beginning of the line, part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 1/51.
The Upper Germanic Limes does not start with a bang. Near Bendorf, on the slopes where the Westerwald drops toward the Rhine at the Neuwied basin, it is a matter of reading the woods: a low bank here, a shallow ditch there, and the spot where a Roman watchtower once stood, numbered by archaeologists as WP 1/51. The towers were placed within sight of each other, timber at first and later stone, so that a signal could pass along the frontier faster than any rider. Standing here among the beech trees you are close to the northern end of a border that ran more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/51 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 1/51 comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
WP 2/5 and 2/6 sound like spare parts, but they are the numbers archaeologists gave to two watchtower positions on the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the fortified frontier Rome drew across southern Germany. Here, in the hills above the Lahn near Bad Ems, the line ran up from the Rhine and over the high ground, and every few hundred metres a tower stood with a view to the next. Today most of what survives are low mounds, traces of the bank and ditch, and in some places a reconstructed tower to give you scale. The whole frontier became part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2005.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6. Next is Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen.
Up on the high, rolling plateau between the Rhine and the Lahn, where the Taunus fades into fields and beech woods, the Romans built one of the better preserved stone forts on the Upper German Limes. Holzhausen an der Haide is a quiet village of a little over a thousand people, and the fort sits just outside it in the trees, the outline of its walls still traceable on the ground, with the gates and corner towers marked out where the stone survives. It is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier that once ran from the Rhine near Koblenz all the way to the Danube, a line of palisade, ditch, watchtowers and garrisons meant less to stop armies than to control who came and went, and what they paid for the privilege.
Read the complete Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 1/51.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/51 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 1/51 comes up about 142 km into the recorded legs. Next is Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a closes the day.
Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a → Watchtower WP 1/51 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 1/51 → Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → back through Watchtower WP 1/51 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 1/51 → Limes section between watchtowers WP 1/2 a is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.