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 Zschorlau it runs 326 km to Zschorlau; allow about 6 h 02 of riding. The stops in between: Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape, Mědník Hill Mining Landscape, Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázne. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. 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 42 km this is Castle Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains of Saxony, a handful of workshops once produced a colour that conquered Europe. Schindlers Werk, at Zschorlau near Aue, was a smalt works, where cobalt ore from the surrounding mines was ground, roasted and fused with sand and potash into a deep blue glass, then milled into pigment. Smalt coloured Dutch tiles, German porcelain and painters' blues, and Saxony held an almost complete monopoly on it for generations. The works was founded in the seventeenth century and has been preserved as a museum.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is where the day begins. Next is Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape.
Tin, not silver, was the business of Ehrenfriedersdorf. For around eight hundred years miners dug into the Sauberg hill above this small Erzgebirge town for tin ore, and the Ehrenfriedersdorf mining landscape, with its shafts, spoil heaps, ponds and ditches, is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage Site. The Sauberg visitor mine lets you go underground into galleries worked by generations of miners, and the hard hat, the damp cold and the drip of water make the history very physical.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Mědník is a small, steep hill on the Czech side of the Ore Mountains, or Krušné hory, the range that forms the border between Bohemia and Saxony. It rises above the village of Měděnec, whose name, like the hill's, comes from the Czech word for copper. For centuries, miners tunnelled into the hill for copper and iron ore, and the hill is now part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as a cross-border site.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Mědník Hill Mining Landscape. Next is Karlovy Vary.
Legend has it that Emperor Charles IV was out hunting in the forests of western Bohemia in the fourteenth century when a stag he was chasing, or in some versions one of his hounds, fell into a pool of scalding water, and that is how the hot springs of Karlovy Vary were found. Whatever the truth, the town that grew up around them bears his name, Karlsbad in German, and by the nineteenth century it had become one of the most fashionable spas in Europe, visited by tsars, composers, poets and the cream of European society. In 2021, it became part of the UNESCO listing of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Karlovy Vary, about halfway. Next is Mariánské Lázne.
Goethe fell in love here when he was already in his seventies. In the summer of 1821 and the years that followed, the poet spent his holidays in Marienbad, the spa town now known as Mariánské Lázně, and fell for Ulrike von Levetzow, a young woman of nineteen; his proposal was declined, and on the journey home he wrote the Marienbad Elegy, one of his most moving poems. The town was then at the height of its fame as one of the great spas of Europe, visited by kings, emperors and artists, from Edward VII of Britain to Chopin and Kafka.
Read the complete Mariánské Lázne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mariánské Lázne sits at 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through Karlovy Vary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Karlovy Vary comes up about 211 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 252 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape. Next is back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape, late in the day. Next is Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 326 km.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape → Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → Karlovy Vary is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Karlovy Vary → Mariánské Lázne is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mariánské Lázne → back through Karlovy Vary is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Karlovy Vary → back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape → Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.