CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
739 km from Lindau to Lindau, about 10 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Oberstaufen, Garmisch Partenkirchen, Bad Tolz and Berchtesgaden. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
A alpine grand route from Lindau, Germany to Schonau am Konigssee, Germany, via Oberstaufen. Key character: Bavarian Alps; lakes; castles. Surface: paved.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 101 km this is Romantische Strasse, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Lindau is an island that behaves like a postcard. The old town sits on a small piece of land in the eastern corner of Lake Constance, linked to the mainland by a causeway and a railway bridge, with a harbour entrance guarded by two monuments, a stone lighthouse and a tall statue of the Bavarian lion. Boats cross to Bregenz in Austria and to the Swiss shore, and behind the harbour wall are cobbled streets, painted houses and cafés that spill onto the quay. The Bodensee, as the Germans call it, is the third largest lake in Central Europe and the surrounding land is orchard country, apple trees and vineyards, with the Alps rising over the south shore on a clear day.
Read the complete Lindau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lindau is where the day begins. Next is Oberstaufen.
Oberstaufen is a spa town with a taste for fasting. Its fame comes from the Schroth cure, a regime of dry days, wet days, wraps and very little food that visitors have been putting up with here for generations, and the place wears its wellness reputation with a certain Bavarian shrug. You see it in the clean flower boxes, the Kneipp-style water basins in the park, and the clinic-like hotels. It is also a proper Allgäu town, and a pleasant one, with about seven thousand people, cow bells in the background, and a brewing tradition that makes the fasting look like a very optional part of life.
Read the complete Oberstaufen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oberstaufen comes up 82 km in. Next is Garmisch Partenkirchen.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen lies in a wide Alpine valley in Bavaria, close to the Austrian border, with the Wetterstein range rising behind it and the Zugspitze, at 2,962 metres the highest mountain in Germany, standing at the end of the valley. The town is really two, Garmisch and Partenkirchen, joined together for the 1936 Winter Olympics, and each still has its own character. Partenkirchen, the older part, has a Roman history, as it stood on the road across the Alps, and its main street, with painted houses, is the more charming.
Read the complete Garmisch-Partenkirchen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
164 km in you reach Garmisch Partenkirchen. Next is Bad Tolz.
Bad Tolz grows from the Isar, the river that rushes down from the Alps toward Munich, and the town's main street, the Marktstrasse, climbs a steep slope above the water, lined with painted houses with gabled fronts and carved signs. At the top stands the Kalvarienberg, a hill with a baroque chapel and a view across the roofs to the Alps. The name Bad means spa, and it was the tapping of iodine-rich springs in the nineteenth century that gave the town its status, though the mountains and the old town are the real draw.
Read the complete Bad Tolz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bad Tolz, about halfway. Next is Berchtesgaden.
Berchtesgaden sits in the far southeast corner of Germany, in a pocket of Bavaria that pokes into Austria, and the mountains here do not bother to be modest. The Watzmann, at 2,713 metres Germany's second highest mountain, stands above the valley in a long ridge, with the pale wall of the Hochkalter opposite. The town is the end of the German Alpine Road, which runs from Lake Constance, and it feels like the end of the line, with the peaks closing in on all sides. For centuries the local economy rested on salt, and the salt mine, worked since the sixteenth century, is open to visitors who put on miners' clothes and slide down the wooden chutes.
Read the complete Berchtesgaden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Berchtesgaden sits at 328 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bad Tolz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bad Tolz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bad Tolz comes up 409 km in. Next is back through Garmisch Partenkirchen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Garmisch-Partenkirchen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
491 km in you reach back through Garmisch Partenkirchen. Next is back through Oberstaufen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oberstaufen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Oberstaufen, late in the day. Next is Lindau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lindau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 739 km.