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.
From Ellwangen it runs 307 km to Ellwangen; allow about 5 h 17 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15, Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the, Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo and Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is Romantische Strasse, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the forests near Ellwangen the Roman frontier changes character. Here the Upper Germanic Limes, with its timber palisade and ditch, meets the Raetian Limes, which the Romans eventually built as a stone wall, and the stretch of watchtowers numbered 12/69 to 12/85 runs through the farmland and woods east of the Jagst. Archaeologists number the towers with slashes and digits, which makes them sound like spare parts, but each one was a small stone or timber post with a few soldiers watching the border, passing signals along the line. Together they form part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15.
Dinkelsbühl looks like a stage set, and the people who live there have worked hard to keep it that way. The old town, with its ring of walls, towers and gates, its half-timbered houses and the huge Gothic church of St George, survived the wars and the bombing that destroyed so many German towns, and it is one of the best preserved medieval towns on the Romantic Road. Each July the Kinderzeche, a festival that recalls the story of local children who saved the town during the Thirty Years' War, fills the streets with costumes and music.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the.
Here the frontier changes character. West of the Franconian lakes the Romans built the Raetian Limes not as a palisade but, in its final form, as a stone wall, a metre or so thick and perhaps three high, running across Middle Franconia toward the Danube. Medieval villagers who found its rubble in their fields had no idea who had built it and called it the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, which tells you how thoroughly the empire had been forgotten. The watchtowers numbered in this section sat along that wall in the farmland around Pfofeld and Gunzenhausen, close to where the line crosses the Altmühl valley.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the. Next is Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo.
Between Greding and Eichstätt, the Raetian Limes runs across the high Franconian Jura plateau, and the names on the map, WP 14/63 to 14/78, are archaeologists' shorthand for a sequence of Roman watchtower sites along this section of the frontier. The Raetian Limes was the wall part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Here, the Romans built a stone wall rather than the timber palisade used further west. Locals later called the remains the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing nothing human could have built it.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching.
North of the Danube, on the edge of the Franconian Jura, the Romans built a string of forts behind the Raetian frontier to guard the river valley and the roads leading to it. Kösching, today a market town near Ingolstadt, was the site of one of them, an auxiliary fort with a civilian settlement around it, home to craftsmen, traders and the families of soldiers. Little is visible today, as the modern town has grown over it, but the site is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The Danube valley was a busy corridor in Roman times, and remains so today.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo comes up about 189 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 236 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 307 km.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 → Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the → Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo → Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Kösching → back through Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 14/63 to 14/78 including fo → back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the → back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 → Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.