Aschaffenburg stands where the river Main swings north out of Franconia and the forested ridges of the Spessart close in on the south bank. It is the north-western corner of Bavaria, and the Bavarians once nicknamed it their Nice for the mild climate that lets chestnuts and vines thrive. The sandstone is red, the river is broad and slow, and the town of sixty-eight thousand has the unhurried look of a place that has been pleasant for a long time.
The great building is Schloss Johannisburg, a huge red-sandstone palace built in the early seventeenth century for the archbishops of Mainz, who used the town as a second seat. Below it, along the river, King Ludwig I of Bavaria had the Pompejanum constructed in the nineteenth century, a full-scale replica of a Roman villa from Pompeii, because he adored classical Italy and could not be there often enough. Both are worth a short stop, and the gardens give a fine view over the water.
For riders, the real prize is the Spessart itself, one of Germany's largest unbroken forests, famous for its ancient oaks that once supplied the timber for Dutch shipyards. The country roads here wind in easy, flowing bends through beech and oak, climbing and dipping across valleys with half-timbered villages, and traffic is light on weekdays. There are old forest inns where you can sit under chestnut trees and order a schnitzel with a glass of local apple wine or beer. Sun-dappled and shaded in turn, the tarmac can stay damp after rain and leaves are slippery in autumn.
Fuel and food are easy in a town of this size. Several stations lie around the ring and along the Main. The town can be congested at commuter hours, since Frankfurt is just up the river, so ride out before eight or after six if you can.
Come in late spring or early autumn, when the forest is fresh or golden and the afternoons are still long enough for a loop through the trees and back to the river by evening.