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 227 km round trip from Glashütten - roughly 3 h 29 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort, Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell, Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro and back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 43 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Glashütten takes its name from the glass huts that worked in these forests in the Middle Ages, when the endless beech and oak of the high Taunus supplied fuel for the furnaces and potash for the glass. Today it is a quiet village spread over a saddle below the Großer Feldberg, at around 880 metres the highest summit in the Taunus, and the Roman frontier passes right by it. Watchtower 3/42 stood on this stretch of the Limes, where the bank and ditch run through the forest along the ridge; near the Feldberg summit, the remains of a small Roman fort, the Feldbergkastell, show where a garrison guarded a pass through the mountains.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/42* is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Kaiser Wilhelm II took a personal interest in the Roman frontier, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, he ordered the complete reconstruction of the Saalburg, a Roman fort on the crest of the Taunus near Bad Homburg. The result, with its walls, gates and buildings rebuilt on the original foundations, is the most complete reconstruction of a Roman fort in Germany and houses a museum of Roman life on the frontier. A few kilometres north-east, near Rosbach vor der Höhe, the ruins of the Kapersburg fort lie in the forest, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/1 to 4/19a, on the section of the Limes running from the Taunus ridge toward the Wetterau, are part of the UNESCO listing of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell.
Echzell is a village of a few thousand people in the Wetterau, the broad, fertile basin north-east of Frankfurt, where loess soil has been farmed since the Stone Age and the horizon rarely rises above a gentle swell. The Romans liked it for exactly that reason. They built a fort at Echzell in the later first century as part of their push into the Wetterau, and a civil settlement grew up around it in the usual way, with traders, craftsmen and families outside the gates. The fort later became part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, which UNESCO listed in 2005. Almost nothing of the walls stands now, and the outline lies mostly under fields and houses, so the Echzell stop is about reading a landscape rather than visiting a monument.
Read the complete Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro.
Großkrotzenburg sits at a turning point of the Roman frontier. Here, on the Main east of Frankfurt, the river border that ran north from Miltenberg came to an end, and the Limes turned away from the water to head north across the Wetterau toward the Taunus. A fort guarded the spot, with a civilian settlement, and parts of its walls and gate can still be traced in the old town, where the fort's outline is marked in the streets. The site belongs to the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and the local museum displays finds from the fort and the vicus.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro, about halfway. Next is back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell sits at 133 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort comes up about 200 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/42* closes the day.
Watchtower WP 3/42* → Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell → Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Grosskro → back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Echzell → back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Watchtower WP 3/42* is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.