Forty thousand years ago, someone sitting in a cave above the Ach valley carved a tiny woman out of mammoth ivory, and someone else made a flute from the wing bone of a griffon vulture. Both were found in the Hohle Fels near Schelklingen, a few kilometres from where you are standing, and they rank among the oldest figurative art and musical instruments ever found. The caves of the Ach and Lone valleys were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2017 as the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, and they changed how archaeologists think about the first modern humans in Europe.
The Ach valley is short and steep-sided, a dry limestone gorge between Schelklingen and Blaubeuren where the cliffs are pocked with caves and the river has long since sunk underground. The Hohle Fels can be visited in season, and the finds themselves are shown at the Urgeschichtliches Museum in Blaubeuren, where the little Venus sits in a case so small you have to bend to see her properly. It is worth it.
Blaubeuren has another marvel. The Blautopf is a spring that wells up from the karst into a funnel-shaped pool of an almost unreal blue, the outflow of a vast cave system that divers are still mapping. Legend says a water nymph named Schöne Lau lived in it, and the town's former monastery stands right beside it, with a carved high altar inside.
For riding, the Swabian Jura is excellent and underestimated. Roads climb out of the valleys onto the Alb plateau in short, twisting ramps, then run across open farmland with junipers, beech woods and long views. The Blau and Ach valley roads are pleasant but busy with commuter traffic toward Ulm, and police keep an eye on popular bike routes at weekends. Schelklingen and Blaubeuren both have fuel, bakeries and inns serving Swabian food, so order Maultaschen or Linsen mit Spätzle and look up at the cliffs while you eat.