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 300 km round trip from Höhr-Grenzhausen - roughly 6 h 40 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the, Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof, Iversheim and Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 43 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Roman frontier in Germany starts at the Rhine near Rheinbrohl and climbs into the hills of the Westerwald, and Watchtower WP 1/73, near Hillscheid, belongs to that first stretch. The numbers tell you where you are: section one, tower seventy-three. All that survives is a low mound in the woods, but in the second and third centuries it was a stone tower with a view over the frontier line and, behind it, the palisade and ditch that ran across the landscape. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes has been part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire since 2005, and this is where it all begins.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 1/73 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the.
Here is where the Upper German-Raetian Limes, the longest stretch of Roman frontier in Europe, begins. The Romans started the line at the Rhine near Rheinbrohl and ran it up over the hills of the Westerwald, then on through the Taunus and beyond for more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube. The section with watchtowers numbered WP 1/11 to 1/20 follows the first climb away from the river through the forests above Rheinbrohl, Hammerstein and Niederbreitbach. Most of the towers survive only as low mounds of stone in the woods, but the course of the frontier ditch and rampart can often be traced on foot, and there are information boards and a few reconstructions along the way.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
There is very little to see at first glance here, which is exactly what makes the place oddly moving. South of Bonn, in the edge of the Kottenforst near the Heiderhof quarter of Bad Godesberg and the town of Wachtberg, the forest floor hides the faint outlines of Roman practice camps. Legionaries stationed at the fortress of Bonna on the Rhine marched out here to train at the hard, boring work that won the empire its wars: digging ditches, throwing up earth ramparts and laying out a camp to the standard plan in a few hours. A handful of these training camps in the Kottenforst are part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is Iversheim.
Iversheim is a village in the valley of the Erft, at the northern edge of the Eifel, just downstream from the old spa town of Bad Münstereifel. It is known for one thing: a Roman lime-burning works, one of the best preserved in Europe. The Romans built a series of kilns here to burn limestone from the surrounding hills into quicklime, which was used to make mortar for the forts, towns and roads of the province of Lower Germany. The kilns were worked by detachments of soldiers from the Rhine legions, as inscriptions found on the site show.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iversheim, about halfway. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1.
The Kottenforst is a big, flat-topped wooded ridge south-west of Bonn, an island of oak and hornbeam in a landscape of fields and commuter towns. It was a hunting forest of the Electors of Cologne, and the straight avenues that cut through it, still named Allee, were laid out in the eighteenth century so that a hunting party could ride after game, or follow falcons, in a precise geometric pattern. Elector Clemens August, who built the Augustusburg palace at Brühl and the little hunting lodge of Falkenlust beside it, loved heron hunting with falcons, and the avenues were part of that grand and slightly absurd game.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Iversheim.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iversheim comes up about 182 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 219 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the, late in the day. Next is Watchtower WP 1/73.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 300 km.
Watchtower WP 1/73 → Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the → Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → Iversheim is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iversheim → Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 → back through Iversheim is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iversheim → back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → back through Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/11 to 1/20 including the → Watchtower WP 1/73 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.