Bayreuth is the town where one man's operas became a pilgrimage. Richard Wagner moved here in the 1870s and built a festival theatre on a hill outside the town, designed to his own ideas, with a hidden orchestra pit and a plain brick exterior. The first festival was held in 1876, and every summer since, thousands of people have made the trip to hear his operas. The tickets are so hard to obtain that the waiting list is said to be measured in years.
Long before Wagner, the town had another distinction. The Margravine Wilhelmine, sister of Frederick the Great, made Bayreuth a centre of art and music in the eighteenth century, and built the Margravial Opera House, a masterpiece of baroque theatre in carved and painted wood, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Hermitage, her summer palace and park, with fountains and grottoes, is a short ride from the centre. Franz Liszt, Wagner's father-in-law, died in Bayreuth in 1886 and is buried in the town cemetery.
With about seventy-five thousand people, the city has every service, with fuel stations, bike dealers, hotels and restaurants. The cuisine of Upper Franconia is hearty, with sausages, dumplings, roast pork and local beer, as this part of Bavaria is among the densest brewing regions in the world. The Castle Road, which runs from Mannheim to Prague, passes through here, linking the castles and palaces of the region.
The roads south of Bayreuth lead into Franconian Switzerland, a landscape of limestone cliffs, caves and small valleys, with some of the best riding in southern Germany. The roads are smooth, with tight bends and gentle climbs, and the villages are tidy. In festival season, from late July to August, the city is busy and hotels are full, so book ahead. In spring and autumn it is calmer, and the light is good.