Cottbus is the capital of Lower Lusatia, a city on the Spree about 120 kilometres south-east of Berlin, and it is a better lunch stop than its reputation outside Brandenburg suggests. The street signs are bilingual, German and Lower Sorbian, a reminder that the Slavic Wends have lived in this region for well over a thousand years. The old market square is handsome after careful restoration, and the Art Nouveau state theatre ranks among the finest buildings of its kind in eastern Germany.
The real reason to linger, if you have time, is Branitz Park on the south-eastern edge of town. It was laid out by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the restless nineteenth-century traveller, writer and landscape gardener, who reshaped flat sandy fields into a rolling English-style park. He is buried inside an earth pyramid that rises out of a small lake, which is exactly as strange and memorable as it sounds. A slow walk round the park after a morning in the saddle is a fine way to reset.
The countryside around Cottbus is flat, so the riding is about atmosphere rather than lean angles. To the north and west lies the Spreewald, a maze of river channels, alder woods and villages like Burg where people still move hay and goods by punt. To the south and east, the landscape tells a different story: decades of open-cast lignite mining have left huge scars, and some of them are being flooded into new lakes. The Cottbuser Ostsee, created from the former Cottbus-Nord mine, is turning into one of the largest artificial lakes in Germany. Riding past these half-finished landscapes is oddly fascinating.
Food here leans hearty and local. Spreewald gherkins are everywhere, and a classic Lusatian plate is boiled potatoes with quark and a splash of linseed oil, simple but good on a hot day. You will find fuel and every kind of shop in town. Roads in the region are generally smooth and quiet, but expect cobbles in older village centres and straight tree-lined avenues where the light flickers and the wind from the open fields can push you around.