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 Mainz it runs 216 km to Mainz; allow about 3 h 19 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 3/23*, Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg, Signaltower Johannisberg and back through Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 26 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Some of the gravestones on the sandy rise known in Mainz as the Judensand are close to a thousand years old. The oldest dated stone here goes back to the middle of the eleventh century, which makes this one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Together with sites in Speyer and Worms, Mainz formed the ShUM communities, centres of learning on the Rhine whose scholars shaped Ashkenazi Judaism for centuries, and in 2021 the three were listed together as a World Heritage Site. Mainz was Magenza in Hebrew, home to rabbis whose rulings were followed far beyond the Rhineland.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 3/23*.
On the wooded ridges near Idstein, the Taunus Limes crossed some of its highest and most remote ground, and Watchtower WP 3/23 is one of the many sites along this stretch. The asterisk in the official label suggests a site whose exact location is uncertain or reconstructed from survey work, which is common along the frontier, where many towers survive only as faint mounds in the forest. Still, walking the Limes trail here, with the bank and ditch running through the beech woods, gives a real sense of the Roman border.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/23* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/23* comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg.
If you want to know what a Roman frontier fort actually looked like, this is the place. The Saalburg, on the ridge of the Taunus above Bad Homburg, is the only Limes fort in Germany rebuilt in full: walls, gates, towers, granary and the headquarters building, all standing again on their original foundations. The reconstruction was ordered by Kaiser Wilhelm II around 1900, who liked his Romans grand and imperial, and while archaeologists today debate some details, walking through the main gate is still a jolt.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg. Next is Signaltower Johannisberg.
On a hill above Bad Nauheim, the Johannisberg, the Romans built a signal tower that could communicate with the frontier forts of the Wetterau, the fertile plain that bulges north of Frankfurt and was protected by a long loop of the Limes. The site, with a later medieval chapel and a modern observation tower, gives wide views over the plain and the Taunus hills, and it is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage listing. On a clear day you can see the towers of Frankfurt on the horizon.
Read the complete Signaltower Johannisberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Signaltower Johannisberg, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/23*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/23* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/23* comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz closes the day.
Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz → Watchtower WP 3/23* is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/23* → Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg → Signaltower Johannisberg is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Signaltower Johannisberg → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Saalburg → back through Watchtower WP 3/23* is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/23* → Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.