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 328 km round trip from Weiltingen - roughly 6 h 00 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85, Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh, Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a and Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is Romantische Strasse, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85.
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 comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh.
On the southern edge of Schwäbisch Gmünd, near the Schirenhof farm, the outline of a Roman fort and the foundations of its bath house lie in the grass, with walls and hypocaust heating systems laid out for visitors to see. The fort guarded the point where the Upper Germanic Limes met the Raetian Limes, the two great frontier lines of Roman Germany, and a civilian settlement grew up around it. The site is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and it is one of the more rewarding Limes stops in Baden-Württemberg, with visible remains and a lovely setting above the town.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh. Next is Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a.
Mainhardt is a small town in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, a long ridge of wooded hills east of Stuttgart and north of Schwäbisch Hall, and the Romans chose to drop their frontier straight through here. The Upper Germanic Limes runs dead straight for many kilometres in this region, up and down hills without regard to the terrain, because the surveyors drew the line first and let the army follow it. At Mainhardt there was a fort with a garrison of auxiliary soldiers, and the outline can be traced in the ground east of the town. The numbers on the label refer to the watchtowers, small timber and then stone posts that stood at intervals along the line within sight of one another.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau.
Jagsthausen is a village of around fifteen hundred people in the Jagst valley of northern Württemberg, and it punches far above its weight in history. The Romans built a fort here on the Upper German-Raetian Limes, with a civilian settlement and a bath house, part of the UNESCO-listed frontier. But the village is better known for a later resident: Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, who was born in the castle here around 1480. He lost his right hand in battle and had a mechanical one made, led peasants in the war of 1525, and became the hero of a play by Goethe that contains a famously rude line that Germans still quote.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a comes up about 200 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 248 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh. Next is back through 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.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 328 km.
Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 → Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh → Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a → Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau → back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limessection between watchtowers WP 9/68 a → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Schirenh → back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → Watchtowers WP 13/13 to 13/15 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.