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 181 km round trip from Bad Ems - roughly 3 h 14 in the saddle. The stops in between: Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen, Watchtower SP 3/5*, Watchtower WP 3/49* and back through Watchtower SP 3/5*. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Rhine Romantic Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen.
Up on the high, rolling plateau between the Rhine and the Lahn, where the Taunus fades into fields and beech woods, the Romans built one of the better preserved stone forts on the Upper German Limes. Holzhausen an der Haide is a quiet village of a little over a thousand people, and the fort sits just outside it in the trees, the outline of its walls still traceable on the ground, with the gates and corner towers marked out where the stone survives. It is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier that once ran from the Rhine near Koblenz all the way to the Danube, a line of palisade, ditch, watchtowers and garrisons meant less to stop armies than to control who came and went, and what they paid for the privilege.
Read the complete Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower SP 3/5*.
Taunusstein did not exist as a town until 1971, when ten villages on the high plateau north of Wiesbaden were merged into one municipality, and so it has no old centre, just a cluster of former villages, each with its church, its half-timbered houses and its fields. One of them, Wehen, gave its name to the football club SV Wehen Wiesbaden, which started here before moving to the city. The Roman frontier ran along the edge of this plateau, and watchtower SP 3/5, close to the line, is one of the many small sites that mark it in the forest between Taunusstein and Idstein.
Read the complete Watchtower SP 3/5* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtower SP 3/5*. Next is Watchtower WP 3/49*.
High in the Taunus, the wooded hills northwest of Frankfurt, the Roman Limes followed the ridge line, and its watchtowers looked out over the forests to the north. Watchtower WP 3/49, near Schmitten and Glashütten, is one of hundreds of such posts recorded along the frontier, and today its remains lie in the woods, a low mound or a scatter of stones. The Limes path, a long-distance walking trail, follows the line through the forest, and walkers can trace the ditch and bank of the old frontier for kilometres. The whole line is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage site.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/49* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/49*, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower SP 3/5*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower SP 3/5* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower SP 3/5* sits at 102 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen comes up about 151 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 closes the day.
Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 → Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → Watchtower SP 3/5* is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower SP 3/5* → Watchtower WP 3/49* is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/49* → back through Watchtower SP 3/5* is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower SP 3/5* → back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortsite of Holzhausen and civil settlemen → Watchtowers WP 2/2 to 2/4 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.