Mölln is a town built between lakes, and the one to head for is the Stadtsee, the town lake, which laps right up to the old centre and has a small public beach, a lawn and a landing stage for pedal boats. The water is clear, gently sloping and mild by midsummer, and the park behind the beach is shaded by old trees. You change on the grass, nobody minds, and an hour in and out of the water is worth more than any amount of roadside coffee. Smaller lakes lie around the town, the Schulsee, the Hellbachsee and others, each with its own bathing place and its own reed margin.
The lakes are the legacy of the ice age, and they sit along the line of an old glacial meltwater valley. Around them the land is gently hilly, wooded with beech and oak, and the surrounding nature park, the Lauenburg Lakes, is full of paths, boat landings and quiet corners. In the Middle Ages the lakes were part of a trade route, since the salt barges from Lüneburg reached Lübeck by a chain of waterways and canals that passed through here. The old Stecknitz canal, one of the oldest artificial waterways in Europe, was dug in the fourteenth century, and the Hanseatic city of Lübeck held Mölln as a pawn for nearly three centuries, to protect the salt road.
The ride in is one of the nicer approaches to the Baltic from Hamburg. Roads run through beech woods and across farmland, with views of lakes flashing between trees and a lot of gentle bends. The tarmac is mostly good, and the traffic is light on weekdays. On hot weekends it fills with bathers and cyclists, and parking near the town lake can be hard to find, so an early start helps. In autumn the woods turn gold and the lakes are quiet.
Water safety is simple common sense. The bathing places are marked, and lifeguards are on duty at the main beach in high season. Do not dive into unknown water, and keep clear of the paddle boats. With about eighteen thousand people, Mölln has fuel stations, supermarkets and many cafés and restaurants, and the old centre, with its crooked streets and brick church, is a short walk from the lake. Bring a towel, because it is easy to forget it, and a dry layer for the ride afterward.