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.
367 km from Hitzkirch to Hitzkirch, about 6 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes Egelsee, Schreckensee and back through Egelsee. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 96 km.
Lake Baldegg lies in the Seetal, the lake valley north of Lucerne, a gentle, green landscape of meadows, orchards and woods, with the lake in the middle and the hills rising on either side. Seematte, on the shore near Hitzkirch, is the site of prehistoric lakeside villages, built on piles over the water's edge thousands of years ago, and it was inscribed in the same 2011 listing that covers lakeside villages from France to Slovenia. As with most such sites, there is nothing to see above ground, but the setting is lovely, and standing on the reedy shore you can imagine the wooden houses and dugout canoes.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seematte is where the day begins. Next is Egelsee.
There is almost nothing to see at the Egelsee, and that is part of its charm. It is a small, reed-fringed bog lake in the rolling Thurgau countryside between Gachnang and Frauenfeld, and under its peat and mud lie the remains of a Neolithic lakeside settlement, timber piles and floor layers preserved for thousands of years because air never reached them. It is one of the many sites that make up the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps on the UNESCO list, and unlike the reconstructed villages you find elsewhere, this one has been left in the ground on purpose. Archaeologists consider the soggy earth the best museum there is.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Egelsee comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Schreckensee.
The Schreckensee, the lake of terror, is a disappointingly peaceful place for such a dramatic name. It is a small kettle lake in the moraine country of Upper Swabia, between Ravensburg and Aulendorf, left behind when a block of glacial ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Its shores, now partly bog and reed bed, hide the remains of prehistoric settlements, and it is one of the German sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As at most of these sites, nothing is visible on the surface; the timbers and household waste lie preserved underwater and in the peat, waiting for future archaeologists.
Read the complete Schreckensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 195 km into the recorded legs you reach Schreckensee. Next is back through Egelsee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Egelsee, late in the day. Next is Seematte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Seematte. That is the ride.
Seematte → Egelsee is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Egelsee → Schreckensee is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Schreckensee → back through Egelsee is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Egelsee → Seematte is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.