Lüneburg got rich on salt, and you can still see that in the brick. For centuries brine from under the town was boiled into the white salt that was shipped to Lübeck and used to preserve the herring of the Baltic, and the money from this trade paid for the Gothic town hall, the gabled merchant houses and the old crane by the Ilmenau. The Hanseatic League was good to Lüneburg. The streets are lined with stepped brick gables, many of them leaning a little because of subsidence from the salt mines below, which gives the whole old town a gently drunken look.
It makes a very good stop between Hamburg and the Harz. The town is only about fifty kilometres south-east of Hamburg, on the edge of the Lüneburg Heath, and it is large enough, with over seventy thousand people, to have all the fuel, food and bed you could ask for. The old harbour area, with its restored crane and its cafés on the water, is a pleasant place to sit with a coffee, and the pedestrian centre is a short walk. A lot of local restaurants serve dishes made with heath lamb or with the asparagus that comes in spring.
The ride here from Hamburg is easy, a mix of main roads and quiet country lanes. The surface is good, the bends are gentle, and the landscape is flat to gently rolling, with woodland, farms and the occasional heath. It is not a place for adrenaline but it is a place to relax, especially in the late summer when the heather turns the landscape purple, and in the early morning when mist hangs over the fields. On the road south toward the Harz, the terrain starts to lift and the corners get more interesting.
Parking in the old town can be limited, and some streets are cobbled, so take care. Lüneburg is also a university town, which keeps it lively in term time, and its Sunday market and small independent shops are worth a browse.
A sensible plan is to fill the tank on the edge of town, then walk the centre on foot, leave the bike near the harbour and enjoy an hour wandering streets that have hardly changed in character for five hundred years.