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.
238 km from Quedlinburg to Quedlinburg, about 3 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of The house in which Luther died, Naumburg Cathedral and back through The house in which Luther died. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 54 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Quedlinburg is a town that looks as if someone forgot to demolish it, and the result is a delight. More than a thousand timber-framed houses survive in its old centre, representing every century from the fourteenth to the nineteenth, and the lanes between them are so narrow and so cobbled that a motorcycle feels like an intruder. UNESCO listed the town in 1994 as an outstanding example of a medieval European town, and the claim is hard to argue with. It sits at the northern edge of the Harz mountains, with the rounded forested hills on the horizon to the south and the flat Saxon lowlands to the north.
Read the complete Old and new towns of Quedlinburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old and new towns of Quedlinburg is where the day begins. Next is The house in which Luther died.
Martin Luther was born in Eisleben in November 1483 and died there in February 1546, which is either a neat symmetry or a joke the town has never tired of telling. He had travelled to his hometown in the winter of 1546 to settle a quarrel between the counts of Mansfeld, and he fell ill and died in a house near the market square after a few days. The building is now a museum, and the Sterbehaus, the house in which he died, holds items from the last days of his life, with a room where he is believed to have breathed his last. His birth house is a few minutes' walk away, and both are on the UNESCO list.
Read the complete The house in which Luther died write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The house in which Luther died comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Naumburg Cathedral.
The twelve figures in the west choir of Naumburg Cathedral are among the most famous sculptures of the Middle Ages, and once you have seen them, you understand why. Carved around the middle of the thirteenth century by an unknown artist known as the Naumburg Master, they represent the founders and benefactors of the cathedral, noblemen and noblewomen who had died two centuries earlier, but they look like real people, with individual faces, expressions and gestures. The most famous is Uta, the wife of Margrave Ekkehard, standing with her cloak drawn up to her face, cool and enigmatic, who has become an icon of German art. The cathedral, with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture and its rich sculpture, was listed by UNESCO in 2018.
Read the complete Naumburg Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Naumburg Cathedral. Next is back through The house in which Luther died.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The house in which Luther died write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The house in which Luther died, late in the day. Next is Old and new towns of Quedlinburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old and new towns of Quedlinburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Old and new towns of Quedlinburg. That is the ride.
Old and new towns of Quedlinburg → The house in which Luther died is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The house in which Luther died → Naumburg Cathedral is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Naumburg Cathedral → back through The house in which Luther died is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The house in which Luther died → Old and new towns of Quedlinburg is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.