Kuralpe

Kuralpe

This ride crosses the Odenwald in Hesse, Germany, from the Modau valley to the Bergstraße. Its high point is the Kuralpe, which is not a peak but an inn on the saddle the road crosses, on the northern shoulder of the Felsberg. At 514 m, the Felsberg is one of the highest summits of the western Odenwald, and forest roads lead from the inn to its top.

The ride starts in Mühltal and climbs gently up the Modau valley through Frankenhausen and Ernsthofen, then up to the Kuralpe. It descends through Balkhausen, first recorded in 1357, where the Quaddelbach rises, and follows the stream down to Jugenheim. The ride ends below Schloss Heiligenberg, rebuilt from 1862 by Prince Alexander of Hesse and his wife Julia Hauke, founders of the House of Battenberg. The family’s English branch took the name Mountbatten during the First World War.