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 Butzbach it runs 408 km to Butzbach; allow about 6 h 15 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtower WP 3/42*, Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz, Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 and Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Near Butzbach the Wetterau starts to break against the Taunus, and the Roman frontier passes through that transition with a long series of numbered watchtowers, in this case 4/20 to 4/36. It is a longer run than most, and it reflects how carefully the Romans watched this side of the line, where the open plain makes a natural highway for anyone coming from the north. The Upper German-Raetian Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2005, crosses farmland here, and in places the old rampart survives as a low bank in a meadow edge or a stretch of forest.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Glashütten takes its name from the glass huts that worked in these forests in the Middle Ages, when the endless beech and oak of the high Taunus supplied fuel for the furnaces and potash for the glass. Today it is a quiet village spread over a saddle below the Großer Feldberg, at around 880 metres the highest summit in the Taunus, and the Roman frontier passes right by it. Watchtower 3/42 stood on this stretch of the Limes, where the bank and ditch run through the forest along the ridge; near the Feldberg summit, the remains of a small Roman fort, the Feldbergkastell, show where a garrison guarded a pass through the mountains.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/42* comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz.
Some of the gravestones on the sandy rise known in Mainz as the Judensand are close to a thousand years old. The oldest dated stone here goes back to the middle of the eleventh century, which makes this one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Together with sites in Speyer and Worms, Mainz formed the ShUM communities, centres of learning on the Rhine whose scholars shaped Ashkenazi Judaism for centuries, and in 2021 the three were listed together as a World Heritage Site. Mainz was Magenza in Hebrew, home to rabbis whose rulings were followed far beyond the Rhineland.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz. Next is Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44.
The Taunus is the low, forested mountain range that closes in the north of the Frankfurt basin, and the Romans put their frontier along and over it. Here, near Glashütten, the line passes through high woodland at roughly four hundred metres above sea level, in an area that is cold and often foggy in winter. Towers 3/41 to 3/44 belong to the third section of the Upper German-Raetian Limes, the one that UNESCO recognised in 2005 together with the rest of the frontier. The Romans cleared a swathe through the forest, set up a palisade, and watched the open ground to the north, where tribes of the Chatti lived. The name Glashütten itself recalls glassmaking, once common in these forests because wood, sand and potash were all to hand.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44, about halfway. 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 sits at 144 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 comes up about 247 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 300 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42*, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 408 km.
Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the → Watchtower WP 3/42* is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/42* → Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz → Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 → Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just is 43 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 Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/41 to 3/44 → back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Old Jewish Cemetery Mainz → back through Watchtower WP 3/42* is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42* → Watchtowers WP 4/20 to 4/36 including the is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.