The name Heidenheim, the heathen's home, is old and has nothing to do with the famous city of the same name in Württemberg. This one is a small village on the Hahnenkamm ridge in Middle Franconia, with a big church for its size, and it takes you to a corner of Bavaria where the Roman frontier cuts through gentle farmland. Close to Gnotzheim, a fort and a civil settlement once stood here on the Raetian Limes, the Roman border that ran across southern Germany. Soldiers lived inside the walls while merchants, craftsmen and families huddled outside, and today the site is mostly a quiet field with the odd information board.
The riding is enjoyable if you like rolling country. The Hahnenkamm is a long, wooded ridge, and the lanes over and around it twist through villages with half-timbered farmhouses and church spires. To the north lies the Franconian Lake District, a region of artificial lakes created in recent decades, and the Altmühlsee near Gunzenhausen is the largest, popular with sailors and cyclists. In summer the lake roads can be busy with holiday traffic, while in spring and autumn they are calm and the light over the water is lovely.
For fuel and a proper meal, go to Gunzenhausen, about eight kilometres away, a town of more than sixteen thousand people on the Altmühl river with a good market square. Heidenheim and Dittenheim are small, so do not count on a station in either. Heidenheim's old abbey church is worth a stop, since the monastery was founded in the eighth century by Wunibald, an English-born missionary monk from the circle around Boniface, who helped bring Christianity to the German lands. His sister Walburga later ran the community after his death.
Franconian food is substantial and the beer is good. Look for roast pork with dumplings, or carp in the lake country, a tradition that goes back centuries. If you stay for the sunset, the fields around the fort site turn gold, and for a moment you can imagine the lights of a Roman guard post answering from the next hilltop.