The monks who founded Maulbronn were Cistercians, and they believed that a monastery should be a self-sufficient world, with its own mill, workshops, fields and, above all, its own water. The abbey, founded in 1147, is today the best-preserved medieval monastery north of the Alps, and a large part of its genius lies in the network of ponds, canals and ditches that the monks dug to collect water from the surrounding hills, drive mills and flush drains. The connecting ditch system is part of that story, a quiet piece of engineering that has lasted for nearly nine hundred years. UNESCO inscribed the monastery complex in 1993.
The abbey church and cloister are a masterpiece of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, with a graceful fountain house, and the complex is walled like a small town. Famous residents have included the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who studied at the monastery school, and the writer Hermann Hesse, who was sent to the seminary here in 1891 at the age of fourteen. He ran away after a few months, and later used the experience in his novel Beneath the Wheel. A local legend says that Doctor Faustus performed alchemy in the tower, and the Faust tower is a popular stop.
The countryside is the Stromberg and Kraichgau, a gentle landscape of orchards, vineyards, low wooded hills and half-timbered villages. In spring, the cherry and apple blossom is lovely, and in autumn, the vineyards turn red and gold. The ditches and ponds are quiet places, with reeds, frogs and dragonflies.
Riding is easy and enjoyable. Maulbronn is close to the motorway, but the back roads around it are quiet, winding and well surfaced, and a short ride brings you to wine villages and castles. Fuel is available in town and at several stations nearby, and Maulbronn, with about seven thousand people, has bakeries, cafes and inns. Wine from the region, particularly Trollinger and Riesling, is worth a taste when you are off the bike. Visit on a weekday, and give yourself time to walk around the walls.