Eutin is called the city of roses, and it deserves it, but it was a bishop's town first. The castle stands on an island-like spot at the edge of the old centre, a moated, baroque building of pale brick and green copper roofs, set in a landscaped park that slopes down to the Great Eutin Lake. For centuries it was the residence of the prince-bishops of Lübeck, and later of the Dukes of Oldenburg, who gave the town a refined, slightly provincial court air that you can still feel in its elegant streets.
The composer Carl Maria von Weber was born in Eutin in 1786, and a summer opera festival named in his honour is staged in the castle gardens, on a floating stage by the lake. The town has a market square lined with old houses and a cluster of small shops and cafés, and a friendly, unhurried atmosphere. Eutin has about seventeen thousand people, and has everything a rider needs, from fuel to bakeries and places to eat.
The countryside around Eutin is part of Holstein Switzerland, the glacial hill and lake country of eastern Schleswig-Holstein. The roads wind between lakes and beech woods, rise over small hills and drop into hollows, offering short stretches of real enjoyment, with gentle bends and long views. Spring brings fields of yellow rape and fruit blossom, summer fills the lakes with sailors and swimmers, and autumn gives you low gold light and quiet roads. Winter can be damp and grey, but the castle looks fine in the frost.
Malente, a bigger village on the neighbouring lake, is a spa town with a pleasant lakeside walk, five kilometres away. Park the bike, walk across the bridge to the castle gardens, and sit on a bench with a coffee. The lake is calm and full of birds, and you may see swans and herons. If the weather is fine, stay for the evening, when the lake turns to silver and the swifts wheel overhead.