Maulbronn is a small town in the folded country where the Kraichgau meets the Stromberg hills, and its Cistercian monastery is the best-preserved medieval monastery north of the Alps. The Hamberg ditch belongs to a very different part of the story, the hydrology that kept the monks fed and powered. The Cistercians were famous engineers, and at Maulbronn they dug ditches, built dams and shaped ponds so that the water supply could drive mills, fill fish ponds and flush drains. Parts of this system still survive in the surrounding woods, and UNESCO included the monastery and its water works in the 1993 listing.
The monastery itself is a short ride away, and it should not be skipped. Founded in the twelfth century, it has a cloister, a vaulted refectory, a fountain house and fortified walls that make it look like a small town. Legend says Johann Faust, the alchemist of the old stories, studied here, and the town has made the most of it. Later, the poet Hermann Hesse spent a miserable half year at the monastery school, an experience he used in his novel Beneath the Wheel.
For riding, this is a gentle, winding landscape, with roads that follow wooded ridges and drop into little valleys of vines and orchards. Traffic is mostly local, with the busy A8 motorway to the south and Pforzheim to the east, so the lanes in between feel quiet. Surfaces are generally smooth, though farm tractors leave mud in autumn. The Stromberg is wine country, and Württemberg red is the thing to try if you have time, with Trollinger and Lemberger as the usual names.
Maulbronn itself has almost seven thousand people, so you can find fuel and a bakery without trouble, and Mühlacker is larger and a short ride away. A late-afternoon walk around the monastery wall, with the light on the pale stone, is the best use of the hour. Spring blossom and autumn colour are the seasons to choose.