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 Neuwied it runs 297 km to Neuwied; allow about 5 h 43 of riding. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se, Watchtower WP 3/38* and Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 40 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
This single tower, WP 1/39, belongs to a stretch of the Upper German-Raetian Limes that runs close to Rengsdorf and Melsbach, on a gently rolling shoulder of the Westerwald. Unlike many of its neighbours it has been marked and reconstructed in a way that lets you see how it might have looked, with a timber tower over a stone base, and a cleared line of sight in each direction. The towers were usually just a few metres square, with a lookout floor on top and a ladder you could pull up. A handful of soldiers at most would have lived in one, which gives you a sense of scale: it was a sentry post, not a castle.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 1/39 is where the day begins. 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.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se.
The western Taunus is wonderfully empty. Away from the commuter belt around Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, the hills north of Bad Schwalbach turn into a quiet patchwork of forest, small meadows and villages in the Heidenrod municipality, and right through the middle runs the Limes. Today you find grassy outlines, a few markers and the bank and ditch disappearing into the beech woods.
Read the complete Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se. Next is Watchtower WP 3/38*.
The Taunus is a range of wooded hills north-west of Frankfurt, rising to 878 metres at the Großer Feldberg, and it has long been the city's playground, with forests, spa towns and winding roads. Through these hills ran the Upper Germanic Limes, the Roman frontier that stretched for over five hundred kilometres across Germany, and one of its watchtowers, numbered WP 3/38, stood near the village of Glashütten, close to Waldems and Königstein im Taunus.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/38* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/38*, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha.
Elvis Presley spent his military service in Friedberg, a few kilometres from here, from 1958 to 1960, and lived in a rented house in the spa town of Bad Nauheim, where fans still leave messages on the wall outside and a square in the town bears his name. But nearly two thousand years earlier, other soldiers served in this region. The Roman frontier of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, a World Heritage site, ran along the edge of the Taunus hills here, and at Langenhain, near Ober-Mörlen, the Romans built a fort with a civil settlement beside it, where traders, craftsmen and the families of soldiers lived. Today, the site is mostly fields and meadows, with information boards to help you imagine the walls, gates and buildings that once stood here.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha sits at 138 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/38*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/38* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/38* comes up about 180 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 225 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se. 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, late in the day. Next is Watchtower WP 1/39.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 297 km.
Watchtower WP 1/39 → Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se → Watchtower WP 3/38* is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/38* → Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Langenha → back through Watchtower WP 3/38* is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/38* → back through Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se → back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → Watchtower WP 1/39 is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.