Watchtower WP 1/61 and Dormagen

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Watchtower WP 1/61

   Höhr-Grenzhausen is clay country, and that decides almost everything about this part of the Westerwald. The hills hold a thick seam of fine, high-quality stoneware clay, and for centuries the area has been known as the Kannenbäckerland, the land of the jug makers. Grey salt-glazed pottery with blue decoration, called Westerwald stoneware, was exported across Europe from here, and workshops and a ceramics museum still keep the trade alive. It is a surprising backdrop for a Roman watchtower, but the Romans were here first, and WP 1/61 is one of the numbered posts of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, which UNESCO listed in 2005.

   Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/61 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Watchtower WP 1/61 is where the day begins. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee.

2. 2. Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee

   The Kottenforst is a big, flat, rather mysterious forest on the plateau south-west of Bonn, crossed by long, dead-straight avenues laid out by the Electors of Cologne in the eighteenth century as hunting rides. The Bellerbuschallee is one of them, and walking or riding along it you pass oak and beech, wet hollows and the occasional deer. Under the trees, though, lie traces much older than the Electors: the low ramparts of Roman practice camps, where legionaries from Bonn learned to dig defences quickly. These camps form part of the Lower German Limes World Heritage listing inscribed in 2021.

   Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee comes up about 82 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dormagen.

3. 3. Dormagen

   Dormagen is not the sort of place that ends up on postcards, and it does not try to be. It is a working town of some sixty thousand on the left bank of the Rhine between Cologne and Düsseldorf, dominated on its northern side by a huge chemical park whose pipes and stacks glow at night. Yet the name itself comes from Roman times: Durnomagus was a fort on the Lower German Limes, the Rhine frontier that UNESCO listed in 2021, and a cavalry unit was stationed here to patrol the river and the road along it.

   Read the complete Dormagen write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 165 km into the recorded legs you reach Dormagen. Next is back through Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee.

4. 4. back through Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kottenforst Süd | Bellerbuschallee, late in the day. Next is Watchtower WP 1/61.

5. 5. Watchtower WP 1/61

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/61 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Watchtower WP 1/61. That is the ride.