The Palatinate has a way of making you hungry and thirsty at the same time, and Bad Dürkheim is where the effect is strongest. The town lies at the foot of the Haardt, the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest, with vineyards climbing the slope behind it and the Rhine plain stretching flat to the east. It is one of the main stops on the German Wine Route, and it takes its wine very seriously, with a sense of humour attached.
The humour has a shape and a size. Just outside the centre stands the Dürkheimer Riesenfass, a giant wooden barrel from the 1930s that holds well over a million litres and has a tavern inside it, which is exactly as silly as it sounds and makes a fine lunch spot. Each September the town hosts the Wurstmarkt, which claims to be the biggest wine festival in the world and which started as a market for sausages. Locals drink their wine as Schorle, mixed with sparkling water, from the Dubbeglas, a half-litre glass with dimples that you will see on every table. The classic food is Saumagen, a stuffed pig's stomach that tastes much better than its description, and Leberknödel with sauerkraut.
For a rider the pleasure is in the roads that wrap around the town. Along the foot of the hills runs a succession of small wine villages, Wachenheim, Kallstadt, Ungstein, each with a gate, a church and a row of courtyards, and the road between them is flat, narrow and often quite slow. Up the slope, a few lanes climb into the Palatinate Forest in tight hairpins through chestnut and beech. Above town you can find the ruins of Limburg, an old Benedictine abbey on a spur, which gives a view across the plain to the Odenwald on a clear day.
Bad Dürkheim has nearly nineteen thousand people, so fuel, shops and a spa town's worth of cafés are all easy. The old centre and its car-free squares are pleasant on foot, but weekends in autumn fill the place with coach tours and wine tourists. Early spring, with almond blossom out, is the most underrated time to come.