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 391 km round trip from Bernau bei Berlin - roughly 6 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin, The Town Church and Historical Graveyard Dessau. The line favours views over speed.
This part of the ride is 37 km of Berlin Modernism Housing Estates → Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Be.
In the pine woods just outside Bernau, north of Berlin, a cluster of yellow brick buildings steps down a gentle slope toward a lake, and it is one of the purest expressions of Bauhaus architecture anywhere. The Federal School of the General German Trade Union Federation, known by its German initials ADGB, was designed by Hannes Meyer, the second director of the Bauhaus, with Hans Wittwer, and built between 1928 and 1930 as a training college for union officials. Every detail, from the arrangement of the dormitory wings in staggered blocks to the glass corridor that runs down the slope, was designed to encourage community, light and a healthy life. It was added to the UNESCO Bauhaus site in 2017.
Read the complete The ADGB Trade Union School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The ADGB Trade Union School is where the day begins. Next is Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.
Most World Heritage sites are palaces, cathedrals or ruins. Berlin got onto the list in 2008 with flats. The Berlin Modernism Housing Estates are six residential developments built between 1910 and 1933, among them the Hufeisensiedlung in Britz, shaped like a horseshoe around a pond, the Gartenstadt Falkenberg with its bright colours, the Weisse Stadt in Reinickendorf and the Siemensstadt estate. Architects such as Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Walter Gropius designed them to give ordinary working families light, air, green space and decent bathrooms at a time when many Berliners lived in dark, cramped tenement blocks around courtyards.
Read the complete Berlin Modernism Housing Estates write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin.
Potsdam lies just outside Berlin, in a landscape of lakes, rivers and woods along the Havel, and for over two centuries it was the summer residence of the Prussian kings and German emperors. Frederick the Great built the palace of Sanssouci here in the 1740s, a single-storey Rococo palace above terraced vineyards, where he wanted to live without worries, as its name suggests. His successors added more palaces, gardens and follies, and today the ensemble, together with sites in Berlin, forms one of Germany's largest UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Read the complete Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. Next is The Town Church.
Wittenberg is a small town on the Elbe, in flat sandy country, and it is the place where the Reformation began. The Town Church of St Mary was the church where Martin Luther preached for decades, and where in 1525 he was married to Katharina von Bora, a former nun. The twin towers rise over the market square, and the interior holds an altarpiece painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, finished in the 1540s, which shows the Lord's Supper, baptism, confession and preaching, illustrating the new Protestant ideas in a way ordinary people could grasp. Luther himself and his friends appear in the paintings.
Read the complete The Town Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Town Church, about halfway. Next is Historical Graveyard Dessau.
Dessau is best known for the Bauhaus, but the city's older story is one of parks and princes. The Historical Graveyard, laid out in the Enlightenment spirit of the late eighteenth century, was designed as a landscape garden as much as a burial ground, with winding paths, old trees and monuments set among greenery. Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau, who created the nearby Garden Realm of Dessau-Wörlitz, believed that gardens could educate and uplift, and the cemetery follows the same idea: a place to walk and reflect.
Read the complete Historical Graveyard Dessau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Graveyard Dessau sits at 195 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Town Church.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Town Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Town Church comes up about 230 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 314 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. Next is back through Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Berlin Modernism Housing Estates write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, late in the day. Next is The ADGB Trade Union School.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The ADGB Trade Union School write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 391 km.
The ADGB Trade Union School → Berlin Modernism Housing Estates is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates → Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin → The Town Church is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Town Church → Historical Graveyard Dessau is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historical Graveyard Dessau → back through The Town Church is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Town Church → back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin → back through Berlin Modernism Housing Estates is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Berlin Modernism Housing Estates → The ADGB Trade Union School is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.