CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
387 km from Füssen to Füssen, about 6 h 20 of riding. On the way it passes King's House on Schachen, Rose Island, Pestenacker and back through Rose Island. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
42 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For 81 km this is German Alpine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
King Ludwig II of Bavaria began building Neuschwanstein in 1869 as a private dream, a medieval knight's castle with all the comforts of the nineteenth century, including central heating and running water. He never saw it finished, and he lived there for only a handful of months. In 1886 he was declared unfit to rule and removed, and he died a few days later in the Starnberger See, in circumstances that are still debated. Within weeks the castle was opened to the public to pay off his debts, and it has been admired ever since. Walt Disney's designers are said to have taken inspiration from it.
Read the complete Neuschwanstein Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Neuschwanstein Castle is where the day begins. Next is King's House on Schachen.
This is one of the few royal residences in Europe that you cannot reach by any road, and King Ludwig II of Bavaria would have liked it that way. The King's House on Schachen stands on a high alpine meadow at about 1,866 metres in the Wetterstein mountains, south of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, below the jagged walls of the range that culminates in the Zugspitze. Ludwig had it built between 1869 and 1872 as a mountain retreat, and from the outside it looks like a modest Swiss chalet. Inside, upstairs, is a fantasy: the Turkish Hall, a room of blue, gold and red, with a fountain, peacock-feather fans, divans and stained glass, where the king liked to celebrate his birthday dressed in oriental costume while his servants smoked hookahs.
Read the complete King's House on Schachen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
King's House on Schachen comes up 57 km in. Next is Rose Island.
Lake Starnberg, south-west of Munich, is the lake where Bavaria's Fairy Tale King met his end. Ludwig II drowned in its waters near Berg in 1886, in circumstances that are still debated, and a cross stands in the lake where his body was found. On the opposite shore, near Feldafing, lies the small Roseninsel, or Rose Island, the only island in the lake. Ludwig's father Maximilian II had a little villa built there, surrounded by a rose garden, and Ludwig used it as a retreat, sometimes meeting his cousin, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, who spent her childhood at nearby Possenhofen.
Read the complete Rose Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
114 km in you reach Rose Island. Next is Pestenacker.
Pestenacker is a field in Bavaria with a secret under it. Around five and a half thousand years ago, Neolithic farmers built a settlement on the damp ground near the Lech, and the waterlogged soil preserved timber, tools and household remains that would have rotted elsewhere. It belongs to the family of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, inscribed by UNESCO in 2011, a group that also includes the Roseninsel in Lake Starnberg to the south. What you see at the surface is modest, since most of the evidence is below ground, so the interest here lies in imagining.
Read the complete Pestenacker write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pestenacker, about halfway. Next is back through Rose Island.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rose Island write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rose Island sits at 227 km, about halfway. Next is back through King's House on Schachen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete King's House on Schachen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through King's House on Schachen comes up 284 km in. Next is Neuschwanstein Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Neuschwanstein Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Neuschwanstein Castle closes the day.
Neuschwanstein Castle → King's House on Schachen is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
King's House on Schachen → Rose Island is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rose Island → Pestenacker is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pestenacker → back through Rose Island is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rose Island → back through King's House on Schachen is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through King's House on Schachen → Neuschwanstein Castle is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.