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 Marienberg it runs 362 km to Marienberg; allow about 6 h 25 of riding. The stops in between: Mědník Hill Mining Landscape, Rother Berg Mining Landscape, Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázne. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
In 1521 Duke Heinrich of Saxony founded a new town in the Ore Mountains to house miners drawn by recent silver strikes, and he had it laid out on a regular grid around a huge square market place, following Renaissance ideas of the ideal city. Marienberg is the result, and its plan is still clearly visible, with straight streets, the town church, the Zschopau gate and a stretch of town wall. The town is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border World Heritage Site inscribed in 2019, which recognises eight hundred years of mining in these mountains.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Marienberg Mining Town is where the day begins. Next is Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Mědník is a small, steep hill on the Czech side of the Ore Mountains, or Krušné hory, the range that forms the border between Bohemia and Saxony. It rises above the village of Měděnec, whose name, like the hill's, comes from the Czech word for copper. For centuries, miners tunnelled into the hill for copper and iron ore, and the hill is now part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as a cross-border site.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Schwarzenberg, in the western Erzgebirge, is a town of steep streets, slate roofs and a castle and church perched on a rock above the Schwarzwasser river, and the hills around it are riddled with old mine workings. The Rother Berg, the red mountain, takes its name from the iron ore that colours its soil, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border UNESCO site listed in 2019. For eight centuries, miners in these mountains dug for silver, tin, iron, cobalt and later uranium, and their work shaped not only the landscape but the culture of the whole region.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Rother Berg Mining Landscape. Next is Karlovy Vary.
Legend has it that Emperor Charles IV was out hunting in the forests of western Bohemia in the fourteenth century when a stag he was chasing, or in some versions one of his hounds, fell into a pool of scalding water, and that is how the hot springs of Karlovy Vary were found. Whatever the truth, the town that grew up around them bears his name, Karlsbad in German, and by the nineteenth century it had become one of the most fashionable spas in Europe, visited by tsars, composers, poets and the cream of European society. In 2021, it became part of the UNESCO listing of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Karlovy Vary, about halfway. Next is Mariánské Lázne.
Goethe fell in love here when he was already in his seventies. In the summer of 1821 and the years that followed, the poet spent his holidays in Marienbad, the spa town now known as Mariánské Lázně, and fell for Ulrike von Levetzow, a young woman of nineteen; his proposal was declined, and on the journey home he wrote the Marienbad Elegy, one of his most moving poems. The town was then at the height of its fame as one of the great spas of Europe, visited by kings, emperors and artists, from Edward VII of Britain to Chopin and Kafka.
Read the complete Mariánské Lázne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mariánské Lázne sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Karlovy Vary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Karlovy Vary comes up about 232 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 284 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape. Next is back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape, late in the day. Next is Marienberg Mining Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 362 km.
Marienberg Mining Town → Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape → Karlovy Vary is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Karlovy Vary → Mariánské Lázne is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mariánské Lázne → back through Karlovy Vary is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Karlovy Vary → back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape → back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → Marienberg Mining Town is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.