Grünstadt does not make the postcards, and it does not seem to mind. It is a working wine town of about thirteen thousand at the northern end of the Palatinate Wine Route, with a pedestrian centre, a Saturday market and a few handsome half-timbered houses that survived the wars. The vineyards start right behind the railway, and beyond them the land rolls westward toward the Donnersberg, the highest hill in the Palatinate at just under seven hundred metres, a dome of forest that you can see from half the region.
The area is called the Leiningerland, after the counts of Leiningen who ruled from the Middle Ages, and their ruined castles still sit on the ridges above the villages. At Altleiningen, a few kilometres to the west, a castle that was rebuilt in the twentieth century now holds a hotel and a restaurant, and from its walls you can look across the wooded Eis valley. The villages in between, with their pointed church towers and long low farmhouses, feel more lived-in than polished, which is exactly what you want after a morning of tourist traffic further south.
Riding here is easy and quiet. The back roads between the vines carry a handful of local cars and a lot of tractors, and the corners are gentle and unhurried. West of town, the road climbs into the hills of the northern Palatinate, with views back across the Rhine plain, and the traffic drops almost to nothing. The surface is generally fine, though farm vehicles can leave mud and clippings on the tarmac at harvest. This part of the route is a good starting point if you are heading south along the full length of the Wine Route, and a decent place to take stock before you commit to the day.
Grünstadt has everything a rider needs: petrol stations, supermarkets, bakeries, a bike shop or two, and enough cafés to make a late breakfast easy. In the village of Kirchheim, just south, you will find the first of the big wine estates that line the route. Try a glass of the local Riesling or the lighter Müller-Thurgau with a plate of Leberknödel, the liver dumpling that is the Palatinate's idea of comfort.
Late September has the best light, when the vineyards glow and the grape lorries rumble down every lane.