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.
From Mainhardt it runs 321 km to Mainhardt; allow about 5 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13, Fortlet Holderbusch, Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur and Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens. The line favours views over speed.
Mainhardt sits on a ridge in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, and the Roman frontier ran right through it, on its way south in one of the longest straight lines ever drawn across European landscape. Here, the Upper Germanic Limes runs for some eighty kilometres from Walldürn to near Welzheim almost perfectly straight, ignoring hills and valleys, as if surveyors had laid a ruler on the map. The watchtowers numbered in this section stood along that line in the forest, and Mainhardt had a fort, whose site is marked in the village, with a small museum.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13.
Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, was born at Jagsthausen castle in about 1480, and he would probably be amused to know that he is best remembered today for a rude phrase. In Goethe's play about him, Götz tells an imperial messenger exactly what the emperor can do, a line that every German knows. The castle still stands in the village, now a hotel, and in summer the Burgfestspiele, an open-air theatre festival, stages the play in the castle courtyard. Long before Götz, the Romans were here too: a fort stood at Jagsthausen on the line of the Upper Germanic Limes, and in the hills around, a series of watchtowers, numbered by archaeologists as WP 9/2 to 9/13, kept watch along the frontier.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortlet Holderbusch.
Holderbusch is a small piece of woodland above the Odenwald plateau, close to Buchen, where the Romans placed a fortlet on the Odenwald Limes about the middle of the second century. This part of the Upper Germanic frontier was, for much of its length, a simple palisade and ditch, running in an astonishingly straight line across hills and valleys from the Main to the Neckar. A fortlet was a small post, a few dozen soldiers behind a bank and ditch, and from here the watchtowers on each side could be reached on foot within minutes. The ground is marked by gentle swellings in the forest floor and a path with explanatory signs, and the walk takes less than half an hour.
Read the complete Fortlet Holderbusch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Fortlet Holderbusch. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur.
For a stretch of about fifty kilometres the Romans let the River Main do the work of a wall. Between Miltenberg and Grosskrotzenburg, the frontier of the Upper Germanic Limes followed the river instead of running as a palisade across country, and a chain of forts sat along its west bank. Trennfurt, a village now part of Klingenberg am Main, was one of them: a fort with its civilian settlement, the vicus, where traders, craftsmen and soldiers' families lived. It is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and as with many Limes sites, most of what survives lies under fields and gardens rather than standing proud.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens.
Seligenstadt is one of those Main valley towns where every era has left something on the table. The Romans came first: here the frontier of the Upper German-Raetian Limes ran along the river itself, and a fort with a civilian settlement around it guarded the Main crossing. The fort site lies under the old town, so you are walking over it rather than looking at it, but the logic of the place is obvious when you stand by the water. The river was the border, the road and the supply line all at once.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens sits at 161 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur comes up about 204 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fortlet Holderbusch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet Holderbusch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 249 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fortlet Holderbusch. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 321 km.
Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the → Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 → Fortlet Holderbusch is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet Holderbusch → Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur → Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Seligens → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Trennfur → back through Fortlet Holderbusch is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortlet Holderbusch → back through Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 → Watchtowers WP 9/70 to 9/99a including the is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.