Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the and Lone Valley

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the

   For about eighty kilometres through northern Württemberg, the Roman frontier runs in a nearly perfectly straight line, ignoring hills, valleys and rivers as if someone had drawn it with a ruler on a map. Surveyors still argue about how the Romans managed it. The stretch with watchtowers 9/14 to 9/32, near Öhringen in the Hohenlohe region, lies along this remarkable line, and Öhringen itself grew from Roman forts, two of them, which guarded the frontier here. The line is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and the Limes trail follows it through fields and forests.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the is where the day begins. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.

2. 2. Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch

   Lorch, in the Rems valley east of Stuttgart, sits on a historic seam. Just outside town, the Upper German Limes, which ran as a palisade and ditch from the Rhine, met the Raetian Limes, the stone wall running east to the Danube, and the Romans built a fort here to watch over that junction and the valley road. The fort lay beneath what is now the old town centre, and its outline, together with traces of the civilian settlement that grew around it, is marked in places in the streets. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site, and a reconstructed watchtower stands on a hill nearby.

   Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch comes up 64 km in. Next is Lone Valley.

3. 3. Lone Valley

   The Lone is a small river in the Swabian Jura, east of Ulm, that often vanishes underground in dry weather, slipping into the limestone and leaving its bed empty. Its quiet valley, flanked by wooded slopes and limestone cliffs, holds caves where some of the oldest figurative art in the world was found. In the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave, fragments of a figure carved from mammoth ivory were pieced together into the Lion Man, a being with a human body and a lion's head, around forty thousand years old. In the Vogelherd cave, tiny ivory animals, a horse, a mammoth, a cave lion, emerged from the sediment.

   Read the complete Lone Valley write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   129 km in you reach Lone Valley. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.

4. 4. back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the.

5. 5. Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Watchtowers WP 9/14 to 9/32 including the. That is the ride.