Hamburg's north-eastern fringe, where the city gives way to fields, is a district of long avenues, brick housing blocks and green corridors. The Wandse, a small river that runs through the area, has been tamed into a chain of ponds and parks, and the path along it is popular with walkers and cyclists. Farmsen-Berne and Steilshoop, the two large districts nearby, are residential neighbourhoods built mostly in the twentieth century, with rows of apartment buildings, shopping centres and tree-lined streets. Wandsbek, a little further south, is the big local hub.
For a motorcyclist, a start here has a clear advantage: it is on the right side of the city for a run out to the north and east, avoiding the harbour and the tunnels and the Elbe bridges. You can pick up the roads towards the lakes of Holstein or the heaths of the Lüneburg country without crossing the centre. Commuter traffic on weekday mornings is heavy, so early on a weekend or after nine on a weekday are better.
Hamburg itself deserves a moment of thought as you leave. It is Germany's second city, with a harbour that has been central to its life for over eight hundred years, and its wealth is visible in the red-brick warehouses of the Speicherstadt, the grand merchant houses and the lakes of the Alster in the heart of town. The city has always seen itself as a free city of merchants, independent and outward-looking, and people there still say they are Hamburgers first and Germans second.
Fuel is plentiful in all the surrounding districts, with stations on the main roads and supermarkets on every other corner, so fill up before you go. A bakery breakfast of rolls and coffee is the local way to start. The wind from the west, off the North Sea, will usually push you along on the way out.