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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 309 km round trip from Großkrotzenburg - roughly 5 h 20 in the saddle. On the way it passes Messel Pit Fossil Site, Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur, Watchtower WP 7/37 and Fortlet Lehnenwiesen. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Great forts are rare on the Limes; most of the frontier was watchtowers, small timber and later stone posts within sight of each other, each with a handful of men and a fire for signalling. The towers numbered 5/15 and 5/16 stood near Großkrotzenburg, at the point where the land frontier coming down from the Wetterau met the Main, and from here southward the river itself became the border as far as Miltenberg. Little of them remains to see, but the location tells the story: the Romans used water where they could and built palisades only where they had to.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 is where the day begins. Next is Messel Pit Fossil Site.
Forty-seven million years ago, in a warm, subtropical world, a deep volcanic lake lay where the forest near Messel now stands, a few kilometres northeast of Darmstadt. The lake's depths were starved of oxygen, and animals that fell or sank into it were preserved in fine layers of mud with extraordinary detail: not just skeletons, but skin, feathers, fur, the contents of stomachs and even the colours of beetles' wings. Over time the mud turned into oil shale, which was mined here from the nineteenth century until 1971. After mining ended, there were plans to turn the pit into a rubbish dump; scientists and local people fought the plan, and in 1995 the pit became Germany's first natural World Heritage site.
Read the complete Messel Pit Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Messel Pit Fossil Site comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur.
Obernburg stands on the Main, in the bend where the river leaves the Spessart forest and turns north, and for a time in the second century it was the frontier of the Roman world. The Odenwald Limes, the earlier version of the frontier, ran along the hills to the south and reached the river near here, and a fort was built on the bank to guard the crossing. A civil settlement grew beside it, and finds from both are shown in the town's small Roman museum, which stands on the site and has a collection of tombstones, tools and pottery.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur. Next is Watchtower WP 7/37.
The Romans liked straight lines, and nowhere more than here. On the edge of Walldürn, in the hilly country between the Odenwald and the Tauber valley, runs the course of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the frontier wall that marked the edge of the Roman Empire across what is now southern Germany. Watchtower WP 7/37 is one of hundreds of small posts that lined it, each within sight of the next, so that signals could be passed along the frontier. The Limes here famously runs almost dead straight for many kilometres, regardless of hills and valleys, a statement of Roman confidence and surveying skill.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 7/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 7/37, about halfway. Next is Fortlet Lehnenwiesen.
Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, was born in Jagsthausen around 1480, and he is remembered for a rude phrase he supposedly shouted at an enemy, made famous by Goethe in his play about the knight. Jagsthausen's castle, where Götz grew up, hosts an open-air theatre festival every summer, and the iron hand, a prosthesis he wore after losing his right hand in battle, is displayed there. A few kilometres away, in the fields near Widdern, the fortlet of Lehnenwiesen was a small Roman post on the Upper Germanic Limes, part of the chain of forts and watchtowers that ran through this landscape.
Read the complete Fortlet Lehnenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 7/37.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 7/37 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 7/37 comes up about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur 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 Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur. Next is back through Messel Pit Fossil Site.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Messel Pit Fossil Site write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Messel Pit Fossil Site, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 309 km.
Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 → Messel Pit Fossil Site is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Messel Pit Fossil Site → Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur → Watchtower WP 7/37 is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 7/37 → Fortlet Lehnenwiesen is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen → back through Watchtower WP 7/37 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 7/37 → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Obernbur → back through Messel Pit Fossil Site is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Messel Pit Fossil Site → Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.