Eutin is a small town that carries itself like a larger one, thanks to a history of bishops and dukes. For centuries it was the seat of the prince-bishops of Lübeck, who made the place their country residence, and later it belonged to the Dukes of Oldenburg. Their legacy is a moated castle beside the Großer Eutiner See, with a landscaped park around it, and a town centre of cobbled lanes, a market square and brick gabled houses. The composer Carl Maria von Weber was born here in 1786, and every summer an opera festival is staged on the lake in his honour, with the castle gardens as a backdrop.
The lake road is the point. It runs through the region known as Holsteinische Schweiz, or Holstein Switzerland, a name that makes locals smile a little, since the highest point, the Bungsberg, reaches just over a hundred and sixty metres. But what the hills lack in height they make up for in variety. This is glacial landscape, shaped by ice-age moraines that left behind a jumble of small hills, hollows, lakes and boggy valleys. The roads wind between them, through beech woods, past reed-fringed water and along tree-lined avenues, with views of the lakes opening between the trunks. For northern Germany, it is rich, rolling riding, with short, tight curves in the woods and gentle grades.
The surface is mostly good, but many of the lanes are narrow and tree-shaded, so patches of moss, damp leaves and fallen twigs can catch you out after rain. Cyclists and walkers share the roads in summer, particularly around Eutin and Malente, and the lake is a popular place for sailing and swimming. Early mornings are best, when the water is still and the mist drifts across, and the autumn colours in the beech woods are superb.
Eutin is known as the Rose Town, because of its gardens, and it has a population of around seventeen thousand, so fuel, bakeries and cafes are no trouble. A slice of cake in the market square, with a view of the lake, is the traditional way to spend an hour. The coast of the Baltic, with its seaside resorts, is only a short ride east, so a lake-and-sea day is easy to put together.