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 Steingaden it runs 413 km to Steingaden; allow about 6 h 30 of riding. It goes by way of King's House on Schachen, Rose Island, Unfriedshausen and Water Management System of Augsburg. 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.
For about 45 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.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
34 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.
In a meadow at the foot of the Ammergau Alps, surrounded by fields, cows and a few farmhouses, stands one of the most extraordinary churches in Europe. From the outside, the Wieskirche looks fairly plain, a white building with a modest tower. Step inside and you are hit by a wave of light, colour and movement: white and gold stucco, pastel frescoes, columns and galleries that seem to float, and a ceiling painting of Christ's return that opens the roof into heaven. It is the masterpiece of the Bavarian Rococo, built between 1745 and 1754 by Dominikus Zimmermann, with frescoes by his brother Johann Baptist, and it was listed by UNESCO in 1983.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Church of Wies write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Church of Wies 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 about 45 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 126 km into the recorded legs you reach Rose Island. Next is Unfriedshausen.
Unfriedshausen is a hamlet in the rolling farmland west of the Ammersee, part of the municipality of Geltendorf in the Landsberg district of Bavaria, and if you have never heard of it, you are in good company. This is the gentle, prosperous countryside between Munich and Augsburg, a patchwork of fields, meadows, spruce woods, onion-domed churches and farmhouses with balconies full of geraniums, and it is the kind of place where the main event of the day might be a tractor crossing the road.
Read the complete Unfriedshausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Unfriedshausen, about halfway. Next is Water Management System of Augsburg.
Augsburg was a Roman town, a medieval free imperial city and the home of the fabulously rich Fugger banking family, but the thing that held it all together was water. Over the centuries, the city built an intricate network of canals fed by the Lech and Wertach rivers, water towers, pumping stations and fountains, supplying clean drinking water to the citizens and power to mills and workshops. The system was so advanced that UNESCO inscribed it in 2019, recognising twenty-two sites, from the water towers at the Red Gate, dating back to the fifteenth century, to the great Renaissance fountains dedicated to Augustus, Mercury and Hercules on the main street.
Read the complete Water Management System of Augsburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Water Management System of Augsburg sits at 207 km, about halfway. Next is back through Unfriedshausen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Unfriedshausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Unfriedshausen comes up about 241 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 288 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Rose Island. 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, late in the day. Next is Pilgrimage Church of Wies.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Church of Wies write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 413 km.
Pilgrimage Church of Wies → King's House on Schachen is 45 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 → Unfriedshausen is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Unfriedshausen → Water Management System of Augsburg is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Water Management System of Augsburg → back through Unfriedshausen is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Unfriedshausen → back through Rose Island is 47 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 → Pilgrimage Church of Wies is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.