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 Erlensee it runs 181 km to Erlensee; allow about 2 h 26 of riding. The stops in between: Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor, Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg, Watchtower WP 4/17* and back through Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg.
For about 32 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
26 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it. Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Between Hanau and the river Main, the plain is flat, fertile and dense with small towns, and it hardly looks like a frontier. Yet around the year 100 the Romans ran their Upper Germanic Limes down this way to meet the Main near Großkrotzenburg, with a palisade, ditch and a line of wooden watchtowers set at intervals of a few hundred metres. The towers on the maps are labelled by section and number, and WP 5/11 and 5/12 are two of them, neighbours in a long chain that once stretched across Germany for hundreds of kilometres.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 is where the day begins. Next is Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor.
The Wetterau is a broad, fertile basin north of Frankfurt, a land of rich loess soils, wheat fields, orchards and old villages, and the Romans wanted it badly. Their frontier, the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, bulged out here to take in the whole basin, looping around it in a wide arc. At Ober-Florstadt stood a fort with a civilian settlement beside it, where soldiers' families, traders and craftsmen lived. Today little is visible, but the site is part of the World Heritage frontier, and information boards help to picture the scene.
Read the complete Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg.
Arnsburg confuses people, and for good reason. The name belongs first to a Cistercian monastery in the Wetter valley near Lich, whose roofless Gothic church stands in a meadow as one of the most romantic ruins in Hesse. But on the wooded hill nearby lies an older layer: a Roman fort on the Limes, sometimes called the Alteburg, with its civil settlement, and the frontier itself running past on its way around the northern edge of the Wetterau.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg. Next is Watchtower WP 4/17*.
The Limes crosses the Wetterau, the fertile plain north of Frankfurt, in a long arc, and Watchtower 4/17 is one small point in it. The Wetterau is loess farmland, rich and flat, with wide fields of wheat and sugar beet, and the Romans valued it as an agricultural region, planting farms and estates beside the frontier. The tower itself, as at most of these sites, is represented today by a low mound or a marker, and a short walk will let you see the line of the frontier running across the fields.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 4/17* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 4/17*, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg sits at 110 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor comes up about 149 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 closes the day.
Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 → Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor → Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg → Watchtower WP 4/17* is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 4/17* → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Arnsburg → back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortsite and civil settlement of Ober-Flor → Watchtowers WP 5/11 to 5/12 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.