Lüneburg got rich on salt. Beneath the old town lies a salt dome, and from about the tenth century until the 1980s, brine from it was boiled into the white stuff that Hanseatic ships carried across the Baltic to salt herring in Scandinavia. The wealth that flowed back paid for a town of high red-brick gables, stepped roofs and ornate town hall, and the result, intact to a rare degree after the war, is one of the loveliest old towns in northern Germany. With about seventy thousand people, it is a city, but the old centre feels like a village in places.
The salt has left its mark in another way. Because the mining and pumping hollowed out the ground, many buildings have sunk unevenly over the centuries, and houses lean at alarming angles, with floors, walls and windows out of true. Some streets look as if they are leaning into each other for support. Around the harbour on the Ilmenau river, an old wooden crane stands on the quay, a reminder of the barges that once loaded salt here. The market square, Am Sande, has fine gabled houses, and the town hall has medieval chambers that are open to visitors.
Riding to Lüneburg from Hamburg is a gentle run through farmland, and the best part comes after the town, in the Lüneburg Heath, the great region of sandy heather moor and juniper stretching south and west. The roads here are flat and quiet, with long, easy bends, avenues of oak and birch, and occasional villages with thatched roofs. Late August and September are the best time, when the heather blooms purple, and bees hum in the fields. Out of season it is a subdued landscape, and mist often lies in the hollows.
In the old town, you can find everything. There are cafes in the courtyards, small bakeries and bars, and fuel stations on the ring road. Cobbles in the centre are slippery after rain, so ride slowly and park at the edge of the pedestrian zone. Try a Heidschnucken lamb dish, from the heath's own sheep breed, or a slice of buckwheat cake, and walk along the river in the evening. Lüneburg is a place to slow down and look up.