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 71 km round trip from Sankt Goarshausen - roughly 1 h 21 in the saddle. It goes by way of Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a, Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen and back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a. It follows river valleys.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 17 km this is Rhine Romantic Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Between Bingen and Koblenz, the Rhine cuts a deep, winding gorge through the slate hills of the Rhenish Massif, and for centuries this has been one of the great landscapes of Europe: steep slopes covered with vineyards, castles on every crag, villages of half-timbered houses along the river, and barges gliding past. The Upper Middle Rhine Valley was listed by UNESCO in 2002, and Sankt Goarshausen sits at its heart, at the foot of the most famous rock on the river.
Read the complete Upper Middle Rhine Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Upper Middle Rhine Valley is where the day begins. Next is Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a.
Up on the plateau of the Hintertaunus, north of the Rhine gorge, the Roman frontier crossed a quiet landscape of fields and forest near Singhofen, and a section of it between two watchtowers survives here as a faint bank and ditch running through the woods. This is the Upper German Limes, which ran for more than five hundred kilometres from the Rhine to the Danube, marking the boundary between the Roman Empire and the free Germanic tribes from the second century until the Romans withdrew in the third. It was not a great wall like Hadrian's in Britain, but a line of watchtowers, forts and a timber palisade, later strengthened with a ditch and bank. Together with the Raetian Limes, it was listed by UNESCO in 2005.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a comes up about 17 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen.
Up on the high, rolling plateau between the Rhine and the Lahn, where the Taunus fades into fields and beech woods, the Romans built one of the better preserved stone forts on the Upper German Limes. Holzhausen an der Haide is a quiet village of a little over a thousand people, and the fort sits just outside it in the trees, the outline of its walls still traceable on the ground, with the gates and corner towers marked out where the stone survives. It is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier that once ran from the Rhine near Koblenz all the way to the Danube, a line of palisade, ditch, watchtowers and garrisons meant less to stop armies than to control who came and went, and what they paid for the privilege.
Read the complete Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 35 km into the recorded legs you reach Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen. Next is back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a, late in the day. Next is Upper Middle Rhine Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Upper Middle Rhine Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Upper Middle Rhine Valley. That is the ride.
Upper Middle Rhine Valley → Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a → Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 2/13 a → Upper Middle Rhine Valley is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.