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.
165 km from Neuwied to Neuwied, about 2 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 1/77, Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe, Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just and back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe. 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 28 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Julius Caesar put a bridge across the Rhine somewhere near here in 55 BC, a feat of carpentry that his own account says took ten days. Scholars still argue about the exact spot, but the Neuwied basin is one of the favourite candidates, and that gives the surrounding hills an extra layer of legend. A century and a half later the Romans came back for good and built the Limes along the heights above the river, with a chain of timber towers watching the Germanic side. The asterisk on this tower's number marks it as a conjectural position rather than a confirmed one.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/36* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/36* is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 1/77.
In the hills of the Westerwald, east of Koblenz, the Roman frontier ran from the Rhine up across the high ground towards the Taunus, and archaeologists have numbered every tower site along it. Watchtower WP 1/77, near the villages of Kadenbach and Arzbach, is one of them, now marked by a low mound or reconstructed foundations in the woods. The frontier here was a palisade of timber and later an earth bank and ditch, with towers every few hundred metres, and the whole system is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/77 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 1/77 comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe.
Marienfels is a small village in the hills of the western Taunus, between the Rhine and the Lahn, and it sits on the site of a Roman fort and its civilian settlement, part of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes World Heritage listing. The frontier wall ran through these hills, and the fort housed a garrison that guarded the frontier and the roads that crossed it. Little remains above ground, but excavations have revealed the outline of the fort and the settlement, with houses, baths and workshops.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just.
Bad Schwalbach is a spa town that never quite lost its nineteenth-century manners: a long, leafy valley, a Kurpark with pavilions, and iron-rich springs that once drew the fashionable from across Europe to take the waters. Just above it, on the high ground of the Taunus, the Roman frontier ran through the forests, and the stretch catalogued as watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 passes within a few kilometres of the town. Here the Upper German Limes followed the ridge, with wooden and later stone towers set at intervals within sight of one another, a palisade in front, and a ditch and bank added later. In the beech woods you can still trace the low line of the bank in places, a quiet scar running through the trees for kilometre after kilometre.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe sits at 101 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 1/77.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/77 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 1/77 comes up about 138 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/36*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/36* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/36* closes the day.
Watchtowers WP 1/36* → Watchtower WP 1/77 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 1/77 → Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe → Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Marienfe → back through Watchtower WP 1/77 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 1/77 → Watchtowers WP 1/36* is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.