Neuruppin is where Fontane was born, and the whole region still feels like one of his books. Theodor Fontane, the great novelist and travel writer of nineteenth-century Prussia, came into the world here in 1819 and later spent years walking through the Mark Brandenburg, recording its castles, lakes and villages in his Wanderings, a work that made the sandy north a place of literary pilgrimage.
Neuruppin, a town of about thirty-two thousand, was rebuilt in a grid after a great fire in 1787, and that planned layout, with wide streets and classical houses, has a calm elegance. The architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who designed much of Berlin, was born here in 1781, and his statue stands near the church. Lake Ruppin, a long narrow lake, runs along the town's edge, with a lakeside promenade and a boat service in summer. Kremmen, a smaller town to the south-east, has an old medieval wall and a long street of brick houses, and Lindow lies among woods and lakes.
The label points to the Barnim Forest and Werbellinsee, which lie to the east, and the ride covers much of the same country, passing woods, lakes and long quiet roads. Surfaces are generally good, though cobbles appear in the villages, and tree-lined avenues are common. In autumn, mist lies over the lakes in the morning, and cranes call from the fields. Deer, wild boar and the occasional elk can be on the road at night.
Kremmen has fuel and a few places to eat, and Neuruppin has a full range of services. Local specialities include smoked fish from the lakes and Ruppin's famous picture sheets, colourful prints made in the nineteenth century. A late afternoon walk along the lake at Neuruppin, with the light turning gold, is a pleasant way to finish a ride.