A forest closer to a city than most people realise, the Kottenforst spreads over a low ridge between Bonn and the Eifel foothills, and the Dürrenbruch is one of the quiet corners of its northern half. The old prince-electors of Cologne used it as a hunting ground, cutting long straight rides through the trees that radiate like the spokes of a wheel, which is why the forest feels strangely geometrical when you look at a map. Today it is a Bonn-area refuge of beech, oak and hornbeam, cut by cycle paths and walking trails.
Be honest about the riding: this is not a motorcyclist's forest. Many of the interior tracks are closed to motor traffic, so the pleasure is in the approach, on the minor roads that ring the woodland from Alfter and Bornheim. Those roads are narrow, tree-lined and quite pretty in autumn, but they are also commuter routes for the Bonn suburbs, so the early mornings and late afternoons can be busy. A Sunday morning is calmer, but the forest is a favourite with local walkers, so go gently and stay on the public asphalt.
The label points to a stretch of the Roman landscape too. The Limes section here belongs to the Lower German frontier along the Rhine, and the region carries traces of Roman engineering, including the Eifel aqueduct, which carried water from the hills toward Cologne across this ridge. Little of it is visible without a guide, and what you notice most is the quiet.
Fuel is easy. Alfter has more than twenty thousand people, Bornheim has nearly fifty thousand, and Bonn itself is under ten kilometres away with every kind of food you might want. The forest is damp and fragrant after rain, with the smell of leaf-mould and wet bark that makes you want to take your helmet off and listen. If you do, you will probably hear woodpeckers, and in early spring the whole place rings with them.