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 Butzbach it runs 188 km to Butzbach; allow about 2 h 39 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 4/81, Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel, Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens and back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 39 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Between the hills of the Taunus and the soft farmland of the Wetterau, the Roman frontier ran in a long, mostly straight line for most of the second and third centuries. This is Hesse, and the numbering that gives the place its odd label, watchtowers 4/36 and 4/37, refers to the standard system archaeologists use to count the Limes watchposts section by section. The point lies near Butzbach, a town of twenty-five thousand people where the frontier crossed the Wetterau and the local fort once held a cavalry unit. The section in question consists of the earth traces, a low bank and a ditch, that the Romans built in front of their wooden palisade, with towers spaced at regular intervals behind.
Read the complete Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 4/81.
A Roman watchtower on the Limes was, in essence, a lookout with a roof. The stone ones were about five metres square and perhaps ten metres high, with a ground floor for storage, an upper room for a handful of soldiers, and a wooden gallery with a window or a balcony from which a lamp, a horn or a flag could be used to signal. Where the tower stood, a small patch of ground was cleared, with a ditch around it, and the garrison lived in the tower itself or in a nearby hut. Number 4/81 stands in Hesse, in the Wetterau, between Echzell and the village of Hungen, in a landscape of farmland and low volcanic hills.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 4/81 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 4/81 comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel.
Marköbel is a village in the eastern Wetterau, the fertile plain north east of Frankfurt, and it stands on the site of a Roman fort that guarded the frontier where it crossed this open country. The fort, with its civilian settlement, the vicus, where merchants, craftsmen and soldiers' families lived, was part of the Upper German Limes, and today little remains above ground, but the village streets still follow parts of the old layout, and a reconstructed section of the frontier and markers explain the history. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens.
Seligenstadt is one of those Main valley towns where every era has left something on the table. The Romans came first: here the frontier of the Upper German-Raetian Limes ran along the river itself, and a fort with a civilian settlement around it guarded the Main crossing. The fort site lies under the old town, so you are walking over it rather than looking at it, but the logic of the place is obvious when you stand by the water. The river was the border, the road and the supply line all at once.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 4/81.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 4/81 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 4/81 comes up about 162 km into the recorded legs. Next is Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 closes the day.
Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 → Watchtower WP 4/81 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 4/81 → Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel → Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marköbel → back through Watchtower WP 4/81 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 4/81 → Limessection between WP 4/36 and 4/37 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.