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.
A 316 km round trip from Hildesheim - roughly 4 h 38 in the saddle. The stops in between: Mines of Rammelsberg, Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey and back through Mines of Rammelsberg. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
St Michael's in Hildesheim is a church that was built to a vision. Bishop Bernward, a teacher and craftsman as well as a churchman, began it around the year 1010 and died in 1022, and the church was consecrated in 1033. He designed it with a double apse, with a choir at each end, and with two transepts and six towers, a symmetrical plan that is one of the best examples of Ottonian architecture. The layout reflects a view of the world in which the church was a model of heaven.
Read the complete St Michael's Lutheran Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St Michael's Lutheran Church is where the day begins. Next is Mines of Rammelsberg.
The two belong to the same story. The Upper Harz was one of the great silver and lead mining districts of Europe, and its engineers built an astonishing network of ponds, ditches and tunnels to bring water to the wheels that drove the pumps and hoists. That water system is part of the UNESCO listing, which took in Rammelsberg and Goslar in 1992 and was later extended to cover the Upper Harz. Today the ponds look like natural lakes, and it takes a moment to realise that someone dug every channel by hand.
Read the complete Mines of Rammelsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mines of Rammelsberg comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Next is Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey.
Corvey sits in a loop of the Weser just outside Höxter, a baroque abbey palace set among meadows with the wooded hills of the Solling and the Weser Uplands closing in around it. The baroque part is handsome but not why people come. Hidden behind it, forming the entrance to the church, is a westwork built between 873 and 885, and it is one of the very few Carolingian buildings in the world still standing more or less as it was built.
Read the complete Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey. Next is back through Mines of Rammelsberg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mines of Rammelsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mines of Rammelsberg, late in the day. Next is St Michael's Lutheran Church.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete St Michael's Lutheran Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at St Michael's Lutheran Church. That is the ride.
St Michael's Lutheran Church → Mines of Rammelsberg is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mines of Rammelsberg → Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey → back through Mines of Rammelsberg is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mines of Rammelsberg → St Michael's Lutheran Church is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.