Lauenburg sits on a steep bank above the Elbe, a small town with an old centre that tumbles down the hill in two levels, the upper town and the lower town, joined by narrow alleys. For centuries it was a toll station on one of the most important trade routes in northern Europe. Salt from Lüneburg went by barge and cart up the old Salt Road to Lübeck, and the Stecknitz Canal, an early artificial waterway, linked the Elbe to the Baltic. Boats, merchants and customs men all passed through Lauenburg, which is why the old houses are so good.
The town stands where the Elbe-Lübeck Canal begins, a waterway of 1900 that replaced the old route, and it is also the capital of what was once the Duchy of Lauenburg. The Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck was given the title of Duke of Lauenburg on his dismissal in 1890, a rather odd consolation prize. The little museum of Elbe shipping, in the lower town, tells the story of the river and its boats.
The Elbe has also been a destroyer here. In the floods of 2013 the river rose to record levels, swamped the lower town and left mud in the streets and cellars, and the townspeople are justly proud of the way they cleaned up. At twenty metres above sea level, the point is high enough to be safe, but you can see the flood marks on the walls of the old houses.
A motorcycle ride here is a delight, with an old river road winding along the Elbe through villages like Artlenburg and Echem, past dikes and meadows where cattle graze. The surface is mostly good, the corners long and easy, and the traffic light outside the summer weekends. Lauenburg is a town of nearly twelve thousand, with fuel stations, supermarkets and a few cafés in the old town. Climb the steep alleys on foot, and look back at the river from the top. It is a good view of a working river.