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.
171 km from Idstein to Idstein, about 3 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen, Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57 and back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 26 km this is Rhine Romantic Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Taunusstein did not exist as a town until 1971, when ten villages on the high plateau north of Wiesbaden were merged into one municipality, and so it has no old centre, just a cluster of former villages, each with its church, its half-timbered houses and its fields. One of them, Wehen, gave its name to the football club SV Wehen Wiesbaden, which started here before moving to the city. The Roman frontier ran along the edge of this plateau, and watchtower SP 3/5, close to the line, is one of the many small sites that mark it in the forest between Taunusstein and Idstein.
Read the complete Watchtower SP 3/5* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower SP 3/5* is where the day begins. 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.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
WP 2/5 and 2/6 sound like spare parts, but they are the numbers archaeologists gave to two watchtower positions on the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the fortified frontier Rome drew across southern Germany. Here, in the hills above the Lahn near Bad Ems, the line ran up from the Rhine and over the high ground, and every few hundred metres a tower stood with a view to the next. Today most of what survives are low mounds, traces of the bank and ditch, and in some places a reconstructed tower to give you scale. The whole frontier became part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2005.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57.
This stretch of the Limes sits close to Bendorf and Stromberg, on the plateau above the Rhine near Koblenz, and the watchtowers numbered here, five in all, follow the line as it climbs from the river. The frontier was a controlled boundary: a palisade or bank, a ditch, and a series of towers within sight of each other, with a patrol path behind. Traces survive as low banks in forest and field, and some positions have been marked or partly reconstructed, which makes this a good place to understand how the system worked.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen comes up about 143 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower SP 3/5*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower SP 3/5* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower SP 3/5* closes the day.
Watchtower SP 3/5* → Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/53 to 1/57 → back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → Watchtower SP 3/5* is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.