Hermann Hesse ran away from Maulbronn after seven months. He was fourteen, a pupil at the Protestant seminary housed in the old monastery, and one day in 1892 he walked out and was found a day later in a field, cold and hungry. He later turned the experience into his novel Beneath the Wheel, and the monastery has not forgotten. The seminary buildings are still a school, and the cloister is among the best-preserved medieval monasteries in Germany, listed by UNESCO since 1993. Johannes Kepler and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin also studied here, which tells you the standard.
The pond at Hochenacker is one of a ring of artificial lakes around the monastery. The Cistercian monks who founded Maulbronn in the twelfth century were practical people, and they built a system of ponds, dams and ditches to supply the monastery with water, to power mills and to breed fish. Many of the ponds survive, and they are now wooded lakes where herons stand in the shallows and walkers follow the banks. It is easy to forget that the water is man-made, and the landscape has a settled, old feeling.
Maulbronn is in the Stromberg-Heuchelberg country, a low, rolling region of vineyards, orchards and mixed woods between the Black Forest and the Kraichgau. The roads here are narrow and winding, with farm traffic and cyclists, and the riding is relaxed rather than demanding. Spring brings blossom, and autumn colours the vineyards red and gold. After rain, the lower roads can be slick with mud and leaves, especially near fields.
Maulbronn, with about 7,000 people, has fuel and basic shops, while Mühlacker, a larger town, is closer to the motorway. A café near the monastery gate is the obvious place for coffee, and the area is known for Württemberg wines, such as Trollinger and Riesling, and for Maultaschen, the local filled pasta, which monks are said to have invented to hide meat from God during Lent. Whether or not that is true, it is a good story and a good lunch. Allow time for a stroll round the pond and a look at the monastery's cloister and fountain house.