The Domhecken, the cathedral hedges, takes its name from the way the old hedgerows and tall trees here once met overhead like the roof of a church. The area in the northern Kottenforst, a short distance from the town of Alfter, is part of the great forest south-west of Bonn, and it carries the traces of old land use: hedge banks, ditches, boundary stones and long, straight forest roads laid out for hunting parties.
The Kottenforst stands on a terrace of ancient Rhine gravels and clay, left by the river when it flowed at a higher level, and the poor, wet soil has kept it from being turned into farmland. As a result, it is one of the largest continuous woods in the Rhineland, covering around four thousand hectares. Oak and hornbeam dominate, in a pattern shaped by centuries of coppicing, and the result is a woodland of crooked, many-stemmed trees that look quite unlike the straight spruce plantations of the hills.
In the eighteenth century, the Electors of Cologne, who had their court in Bonn, used the forest for hunting, and they built a lodge at Herzogsfreude and cut straight avenues through the trees. The sport was hawking and boar hunting, and the surviving paths still radiate from these old meeting points. Beyond the forest, the Roman aqueduct that carried water from the Eifel to Cologne passed nearby, and fragments of the channel can still be traced along the hills.
Motorised access to the woods is restricted, so a rider's role here is limited to the public roads that skirt the forest. These are quiet, wooded lanes with gentle bends and little traffic outside the commuting hours, connecting small villages. Watch for cyclists, walkers and horse riders, particularly at weekends, and for wild animals at dawn and dusk. In autumn, wet leaves on the road can be slippery.
Alfter and Bonn have fuel, bakeries and restaurants, so there is no need to carry any extra. Spring is the best season, when the forest is fresh, and the woodpeckers are loud. Winter can be dark, wet and cold, though a frosty morning among the bare trees has its own charm.