were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than of roads, of which over were stone-paved. In Gaul alone, no less than of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least . The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads. Frankish Empire Francia or the Frankish Empire was the largest post-Roman Barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. It is the predecessor of the modern states of France and Germany. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, West Francia became the predecessor of France, and East Francia became that of Germany. The Old Salt Route or of the Hanseatic League was a medieval trade route in northern Germany that transported salt from Lüneburg to Lübeck. The is a ridgeway and an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany. It was a connecting road between small independent states in Thuringia. The route crosses the Thuringia Forest and the slate mountains of Thuringia and Frankenwald, stretching from Hörschel at the river Werra (near Eisenach) to Blankenstein at the river Saale. It is part of the European long-distance paths network. The (king's road) is a medieval road that ran from Frankfurt am Main to Görlitz in south-west Poland. See also the . An important medieval German pilgrim route was the (because the most important town along the way is Toulouse, France). This is one of the four medieval pilgrim routes described by Aimery Picaud in his 12th-century Pilgrim's Guide, used by pilgrims from southern and eastern Europe on the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela. See also the Palatine Ways of St. James. Germany The Wittemoor timber trackway is a log causeway or corduroy road across a bog at Neuenhuntdorf, part of the Berne in the district of Wesermarsch in Lower Saxony, Germany. Originating in the pre-Roman Iron Age, it is one of several such causeways which have been found in the North German Plain, particularly in the Weser-Ems region. It has been dated by dendrochronology to 135 BCE. It ran across the Wittemoor bog, connecting the more elevated geest at Hude with the River Hunte. An Iron Age settlement near a spring in the Lintel section of Hude was at the southern end.