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 Dessau it runs 309 km to Dessau; allow about 5 h 07 of riding. It goes by way of The Castle Church, Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin, Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt and back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
38 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
The ride follows The Castle Church → Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin for 84 km.
The Bauhaus building in Dessau is a glass box that changed the way the world builds. Walter Gropius designed it in 1925 and 1926 for the school he had moved here from Weimar, and the structure combines workshops, classrooms, a studio block and a theatre in a plan that looks like a pinwheel from above. The famous feature is the glass curtain wall on the workshop wing, which hangs in front of the structure like a transparent skin, one of the first of its kind in the world. Inside, the stairs, the lamps and the lettering carry the look of the movement.
Read the complete The Bauhaus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Bauhaus is where the day begins. Next is The Castle Church.
On 31 October 1517, according to tradition, a professor of theology named Martin Luther nailed a list of ninety five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, challenging the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church. Whether he actually used a hammer is debated by historians, but the theses spread rapidly across Germany and beyond, thanks to the printing press, and they sparked the Reformation, which transformed the religious, political and cultural life of Europe. The original wooden door was destroyed by fire in 1760, and in 1858 it was replaced by bronze doors bearing the text of the theses in Latin. Luther is buried inside the church, as is his friend and colleague Philipp Melanchthon.
Read the complete The Castle Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Castle Church comes up about 36 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 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. Next is Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt.
Berlin's Siemensstadt began as a factory town. Werner von Siemens's company moved its electrical works to the edge of Spandau from 1899, and by the 1920s a whole district of workshops and workers' housing was growing there. The Großsiedlung Siemensstadt, built between 1929 and 1931, is one of the great modernist housing estates of that decade, designed by a team that included Hans Scharoun, Walter Gropius, Hugo Häring, Otto Bartning and Fred Forbat. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, inscribed in 2008.
Read the complete Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt, about halfway. 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.
back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin sits at 209 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Castle Church.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Castle Church write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Castle Church comes up about 273 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Bauhaus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Bauhaus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Bauhaus closes the day.
The Bauhaus → The Castle Church is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Castle Church → Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin → Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Goßsiedlung Siemensstadt → back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin → back through The Castle Church is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Castle Church → The Bauhaus is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.