Wittenberg's Luther Hall is a big, plain, slightly forbidding building, and that is part of its charm. It began as the Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther lived as a friar, and after the Reformation it became his family home, given to him and to his wife Katharina von Bora, a former nun who ran the household with considerable firmness. You can picture a crowded place: students at the table, guests, children, a brewery's worth of hospitality. Luther taught at the university here, preached in the town church, and, according to tradition, nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in 1517. Wittenberg thus became one of the places where the modern world was argued into being.
Getting here is easy and gentle. The town lies on the Elbe in the flat open country of Saxony-Anhalt, with the Fläming hills to the north and the Dübener Heide to the south. Roads are wide, quiet and often lined by old avenues of trees, a feature of this part of eastern Germany that gives long straights an odd, cathedral-like shade. There are almost no real corners, so this is relaxed riding, with the wind as the main variable. A spring or autumn day, with low sun across the fields and the smell of ploughed earth, suits it best.
Wittenberg is a proper town of around thirty thousand people, so fuel, food and coffee are never a worry. The old centre is long and straight along the main street, with colourful Renaissance houses, among them the homes of the painter Lucas Cranach, who also served as mayor and ran an apothecary and a printing business. Park at the edge, walk the cobbles, and take your time with the big brick church at either end of the old town.
Pratau and Teuchel, the villages nearby, are quiet, small and rural, useful for a peaceful stop beside the river dike. The Elbe cycle path runs along the water here, and on a warm day you will share the flood plain with plenty of cyclists. It is a gentle place, with a deeply serious history behind it.