Water Management System of Augsburg and Rose Island

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Water Management System of Augsburg

   Augsburg was a Roman town, a medieval free imperial city and the home of the fabulously rich Fugger banking family, but the thing that held it all together was water. Over the centuries, the city built an intricate network of canals fed by the Lech and Wertach rivers, water towers, pumping stations and fountains, supplying clean drinking water to the citizens and power to mills and workshops. The system was so advanced that UNESCO inscribed it in 2019, recognising twenty-two sites, from the water towers at the Red Gate, dating back to the fifteenth century, to the great Renaissance fountains dedicated to Augustus, Mercury and Hercules on the main street.

   Read the complete Water Management System of Augsburg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Water Management System of Augsburg is where the day begins. Next is Pestenacker.

2. 2. Pestenacker

   Pestenacker is a field in Bavaria with a secret under it. Around five and a half thousand years ago, Neolithic farmers built a settlement on the damp ground near the Lech, and the waterlogged soil preserved timber, tools and household remains that would have rotted elsewhere. It belongs to the family of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, inscribed by UNESCO in 2011, a group that also includes the Roseninsel in Lake Starnberg to the south. What you see at the surface is modest, since most of the evidence is below ground, so the interest here lies in imagining.

   Read the complete Pestenacker write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Pestenacker comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rose Island.

3. 3. Rose Island

   Lake Starnberg, south-west of Munich, is the lake where Bavaria's Fairy Tale King met his end. Ludwig II drowned in its waters near Berg in 1886, in circumstances that are still debated, and a cross stands in the lake where his body was found. On the opposite shore, near Feldafing, lies the small Roseninsel, or Rose Island, the only island in the lake. Ludwig's father Maximilian II had a little villa built there, surrounded by a rose garden, and Ludwig used it as a retreat, sometimes meeting his cousin, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, who spent her childhood at nearby Possenhofen.

   Read the complete Rose Island write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Rose Island. Next is back through Pestenacker.

4. 4. back through Pestenacker

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Pestenacker write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Pestenacker, late in the day. Next is Water Management System of Augsburg.

5. 5. Water Management System of Augsburg

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Water Management System of Augsburg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Water Management System of Augsburg. That is the ride.