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.
297 km from Melsbach to Melsbach, about 5 h 42 of riding. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4, 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 36 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Just north of Neuwied, the Westerwald begins to climb out of the Rhine valley, and the Roman frontier ran up through the woods from its starting point on the river, rising and falling over the low ridges. The Limes here is the Upper German section in its earliest stretch, where watchtowers 1/32 to 1/34 stood close together on the hillside above the Wied, a small river that runs through a pretty, wooded valley to join the Rhine. Melsbach, a village of two thousand people next to the point, lies in this valley, and the surrounding hills are a mix of beech forest, meadow and the fields of the Neuwied basin.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4.
Bad Ems sits in a narrow bend of the Lahn river, and the hills above it are steep, wooded and cut by short valleys. The watchtowers listed here, from WP 2/2 to 2/4, belong to the second section of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, the Roman frontier that UNESCO added to its list in 2005. In this stretch the line climbed away from the Rhine and cut over the high ground of the Taunus and Westerwald fringes, and the Romans placed their towers where the view was best. What you see now are mostly foundations and low mounds, with a few reconstructed pieces nearby, so bring imagination and leave the high expectations at home.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 comes up about 36 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 140 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 224 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 297 km.
Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34 → Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 → Fortlets and site of the fort and civil se is 38 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 44 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 2/2 to 2/4 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 → Watchtowers WP 1/32 to 1/34 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.