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.
A 251 km round trip from Žatec - roughly 4 h 01 in the saddle. It goes by way of Marienberg Mining Town, Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines and back through Marienberg Mining Town. It crosses from Czechia into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
The smell gives Žatec away in late summer. The fields around this small town in northwestern Bohemia are planted with hops, tall green vines climbing up wires on wooden poles, and when harvest comes in August, the air fills with their resinous, slightly bitter scent. Saaz hops, named after the German form of the town's name, have been prized by brewers for centuries for their fine aroma, and they are a key ingredient in Czech pilsner lagers. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops, recognising the town's hop warehouses, drying kilns, packing houses and the surrounding hop gardens as a unique agricultural and industrial heritage.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Žatec is where the day begins. Next is Marienberg Mining Town.
In 1521 Duke Heinrich of Saxony founded a new town in the Ore Mountains to house miners drawn by recent silver strikes, and he had it laid out on a regular grid around a huge square market place, following Renaissance ideas of the ideal city. Marienberg is the result, and its plan is still clearly visible, with straight streets, the town church, the Zschopau gate and a stretch of town wall. The town is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border World Heritage Site inscribed in 2019, which recognises eight hundred years of mining in these mountains.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Marienberg Mining Town comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines.
In 2008, when parts of the old town of Dippoldiswalde began to subside, engineers investigating the problem found something nobody expected: a network of medieval silver mines running beneath the streets, dating back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The tunnels contained remarkably well preserved wooden ladders, tools and even shoes, offering an unparalleled glimpse of mining at the start of the Ore Mountains' silver boom. These finds are part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region listed by UNESCO in 2019.
Read the complete Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 125 km into the recorded legs you reach Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines. Next is back through Marienberg Mining Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Marienberg Mining Town, late in the day. Next is Žatec.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Žatec. That is the ride.
Žatec → Marienberg Mining Town is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marienberg Mining Town → Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dippoldiswalde Medieval Silver Mines → back through Marienberg Mining Town is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Marienberg Mining Town → Žatec is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.