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 Würzburg it runs 435 km to Würzburg; allow about 6 h 35 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 7/37, Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur, Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens and Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 104 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Residenz in Wurzburg is a palace that people go to see for a staircase. Balthasar Neumann, one of the great architects of the baroque, designed it for the prince-bishops of Wurzburg, who ruled this part of Franconia, and it was built between 1720 and 1744. The grand staircase is a single, unsupported vault, and above it, covering the whole ceiling, is a fresco by the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, painted in 1752 and 1753. It shows the four continents, with Apollo and the gods above, and at roughly 600 square metres it is one of the largest ceiling paintings in the world.
Read the complete Residenz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Residenz is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 7/37.
The Romans liked straight lines, and nowhere more than here. On the edge of Walldürn, in the hilly country between the Odenwald and the Tauber valley, runs the course of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the frontier wall that marked the edge of the Roman Empire across what is now southern Germany. Watchtower WP 7/37 is one of hundreds of small posts that lined it, each within sight of the next, so that signals could be passed along the frontier. The Limes here famously runs almost dead straight for many kilometres, regardless of hills and valleys, a statement of Roman confidence and surveying skill.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 7/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 7/37 comes up about 104 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur.
For a stretch of about fifty kilometres the Romans let the River Main do the work of a wall. Between Miltenberg and Grosskrotzenburg, the frontier of the Upper Germanic Limes followed the river instead of running as a palisade across country, and a chain of forts sat along its west bank. Trennfurt, a village now part of Klingenberg am Main, was one of them: a fort with its civilian settlement, the vicus, where traders, craftsmen and soldiers' families lived. It is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and as with many Limes sites, most of what survives lies under fields and gardens rather than standing proud.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 138 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens.
Seligenstadt is one of those Main valley towns where every era has left something on the table. The Romans came first: here the frontier of the Upper German-Raetian Limes ran along the river itself, and a fort with a civilian settlement around it guarded the Main crossing. The fort site lies under the old town, so you are walking over it rather than looking at it, but the logic of the place is obvious when you stand by the water. The river was the border, the road and the supply line all at once.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens, about halfway. Next is Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt.
On a low hill above Darmstadt, at the very end of the nineteenth century, the young Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse decided to gather artists and let them build a new way of living. The Mathildenhöhe became an artists' colony from 1899, and its buildings are some of the best Jugendstil, the German Art Nouveau, anywhere. UNESCO listed the ensemble in 2021. Joseph Maria Olbrich designed most of the first generation, including the exhibition hall and the tall Wedding Tower, with its fingers of brick at the top, finished in 1908 as a gift for the Grand Duke's marriage.
Read the complete Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt sits at 180 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens comes up about 256 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 295 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur. Next is back through Watchtower WP 7/37.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 7/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 7/37, late in the day. Next is Residenz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Residenz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 435 km.
Residenz → Watchtower WP 7/37 is 104 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 7/37 → Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur → Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens → Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur → back through Watchtower WP 7/37 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 7/37 → Residenz is 105 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.