The most consequential telegram in German history was sent from a spa town on the Lahn. In July 1870, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was taking the waters at Bad Ems when the French ambassador came to ask him to promise that no Hohenzollern prince would ever take the Spanish throne. The king refused politely, and sent a report to Bismarck in Berlin, who edited the text to make it sound like a snub, and published it. The Ems Dispatch, as it is known, helped to provoke France to declare war, and the Franco-Prussian War led to the creation of the German Empire in 1871.
Ems was already one of the grandest spas in Europe. The hot springs rising in the narrow wooded valley were known to the Romans, and by the nineteenth century the town drew emperors, tsars, composers and writers. Tsar Alexander II came for his lungs, and Dostoevsky and Goncharov also took the cure. The Russian Orthodox church, with its gilded onion domes, is a reminder of how many Russian visitors came here. The Kurhaus, the colonnades and the promenade along the river are still elegant, and the town, together with ten other famous spa towns of Europe, was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2021. Bad Ems also gave its name to the Emser pastilles, throat lozenges still sold in pharmacies.
The ride is part of the charm. The Lahn valley winds through steep, forested hills, with castles, vineyards and half-timbered villages, and the road from Koblenz follows the river for much of the way, with moderate traffic and good surfaces. Up on the plateau of the Westerwald and the Taunus, the roads are twistier, with bends, climbs and views, and popular with German riders at weekends. Autumn, with colour in the beech woods and mist on the river, is the best season, and summer weekends can be busy. Watch for speed cameras and for farm traffic.
Bad Ems has nearly ten thousand people, with petrol stations, shops, hotels and restaurants, and Dausenau, a few kilometres away, is a smaller village with a leaning church tower. The Roman frontier, the Limes, also ran through these hills, and traces of its watchtowers survive in the woods nearby. A glass of Riesling and a slice of Westerwald cake make a fine ending to the day.