Lorsch is a quiet town of about thirteen thousand in the Rhine plain, between Worms and Darmstadt, and in the ninth century it was one of the most important places in the Frankish empire. A Benedictine abbey was founded here in 764, and under the patronage of Charlemagne's family it grew rich and learned, with a library that was among the best in Europe. The abbey's scriptorium produced the Lorsch Codex, a record of its lands and gifts, and the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, a medical manuscript of the eighth century that is among the oldest of its kind, now on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
What survives of the abbey is the gatehouse, a small building known as the Torhalle or Königshalle, finished in about 880. It is one of the rare Carolingian buildings that still stand in Germany, and it is a delight: a two-storey hall with a facade covered in a pattern of red and white sandstone tiles set like a chessboard, and a row of half-columns topped by decorative capitals. Nobody knows quite what its original purpose was, whether as a ceremonial entrance, a chapel or a place to receive the king. The rest of the abbey was destroyed in the seventeenth century, and the empty site now holds a park, a museum and the foundations of the church.
The surrounding landscape is flat, fertile and warm, the sort of land where asparagus and tobacco were grown, and the wine hills of the Bergstrasse rise just to the east, with the Odenwald forest beyond. Roads on the plain are straight and quiet, while the Bergstrasse and the Odenwald offer the winding roads that riders prefer, with views over the plain and blossom in April. Local drivers are easygoing, but weekends bring plenty of motorcyclists into the Odenwald. Traffic can be heavy on the main roads near Darmstadt.
Lorsch has fuel stations, bakeries and a decent choice of restaurants, with local dishes including asparagus in season and white wine from the Bergstrasse. The ride goes on to Darmstadt, where the Mathildenhöhe, an artists' colony from the early twentieth century, preserves Jugendstil buildings, and the exhibition of 1904 is a landmark. Spring is a fine time, and late summer brings warm evenings and fresh wine.