Lütjenburg is a small town in Holstein with a market square, a church on a rise and a calm, unhurried air that makes it good for lunch. It lies a few kilometres inland from the Baltic bay of Hohwacht, in rolling farmland that was once held by great landowning families. The name carries the Low German word for little, and the place lives up to it.
The estates around it are the interesting bit. At nearby Panker, the manor house and park belong to the family of the princes of Hesse, and the estate is known for its stud of Trakehner horses, a breed that was saved after the Second World War when refugees brought surviving animals west from East Prussia. A hill near Panker called the Hessenstein, about 128 metres high, carries a lookout tower with a wide view over the countryside and the Baltic, and it counts among the higher points in this flat part of Schleswig-Holstein. On clear days it is a short climb to a view that stretches from the Bay of Kiel to Fehmarn.
The riding around Lütjenburg is some of the nicest in the area, a pattern of small hills and Knick-lined lanes where the road rises and falls and bends through fields of wheat, barley and rape. Surfaces are generally good, but farm traffic and sections of patched tarmac mean that you cannot go too fast, and there are blind brows where a tractor may be waiting. The light in the evening, slanting across the fields, is very fine. Spring brings yellow rape and a smell like honey, and autumn brings harvest dust and low sun.
For services, the town has about six thousand people, which means a couple of fuel stations, supermarkets and bakeries, and a handful of places to eat in the centre. Parking on the market is easy, and the cobbles around it are short. Order something from the baker and sit on a bench in the square, and watch the town go about its morning. A café meal, a drink and a quiet half hour are all you need before taking the lanes toward the coast at Hohwacht or inland to Plön and the lakes.