The refectory at Maulbronn is the room that shows what the monks' life was like, a long, vaulted hall where the brothers ate in silence while one of them read aloud. It is just one room in a monastery whose buildings run from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and the whole thing is enclosed by a high wall with towers and a gatehouse, like a small fortified town. This is the best-preserved medieval monastery north of the Alps, and when you walk through the gate you step into a world that is very nearly intact.
The Cistercians were an order of reformers who wanted a stricter and simpler life than the older Benedictine houses, and they chose remote valleys for their foundations. Maulbronn's founders arrived in the 1140s, and they brought with them a style of building that was plain, rational and beautiful. The order spread across Europe, and the layout of its monasteries, with church, cloister, dormitory and refectory arranged in a standard plan, is repeated from Spain to Poland.
After the Reformation, the monastery became a school, and the dormitories and classrooms are still in use as a seminary, which means that students walk the cloister to this day. Hermann Hesse spent a few months here as a boy and ran away, and Hölderlin and Kepler studied here in earlier centuries. It is a place where learning has been practised for nearly a thousand years.
The ride out here is a pleasure. The lanes climb through vineyards and woods, the villages are tidy and the surface is good. On a weekday morning you share the roads with tractors and cyclists. The town of Maulbronn, with a bit under seven thousand people, has fuel, food and a few small hotels, and the cafés around the monastery wall are a good place for a pause. Try the local Riesling or a glass of red.
The ride combines this monastery with Ödenahlen, a quiet corner of woodland nearby. Come early to beat the tour groups, and allow time to linger in the cloister, where the stone seems to hold the cool air even on a hot day.