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.
173 km from Reichenau to Reichenau, about 3 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen, Insel Werd and back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. It crosses from Germany into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It stays on the island.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 25 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Reichenau is a flat, green island in the Untersee, the western arm of Lake Constance, connected to the mainland by a long causeway lined with poplars. A wandering bishop named Pirmin founded the monastery here in 724, and over the next centuries it became one of the great centres of learning and art in Europe, famous for its scriptorium and its illuminated manuscripts. The island's three Romanesque churches survive, and UNESCO listed the whole as a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Read the complete Monastic Island of Reichenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastic Island of Reichenau is where the day begins. Next is Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen.
Unteruhldingen is where most people first meet the prehistoric lake dwellers of the Alps, thanks to the Pfahlbaumuseum, an open-air museum of reconstructed houses on stilts standing in the shallow water of Lake Constance. It started in the 1920s and has been adding houses ever since, and walking along the wooden walkways between thatched huts gives you a vivid idea of village life thousands of years ago. The real archaeological sites, like Stollenwiesen just offshore, lie underwater, a series of settlements preserved in lake mud and listed by UNESCO in 2011 as part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Insel Werd.
Where the Rhine leaves Lake Constance at Stein am Rhein, a group of small islands sits in the river, connected to the shore by a wooden footbridge, and on the largest, Werd, stands a small chapel surrounded by trees and water. It was here, in 759, that Saint Otmar, the first abbot of St Gallen, died in exile after falling foul of powerful local nobles, and the island has been a place of pilgrimage ever since. Long before Otmar, people lived here too: the islands and the surrounding shores are among the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a World Heritage site, and excavations have found traces of settlements from the Neolithic onwards.
Read the complete Insel Werd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 87 km into the recorded legs you reach Insel Werd. Next is back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen, late in the day. Next is Monastic Island of Reichenau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastic Island of Reichenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Monastic Island of Reichenau. That is the ride.
Monastic Island of Reichenau → Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen → Insel Werd is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Insel Werd → back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen → Monastic Island of Reichenau is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.