Oberstaufen is a spa town with a taste for fasting. Its fame comes from the Schroth cure, a regime of dry days, wet days, wraps and very little food that visitors have been putting up with here for generations, and the place wears its wellness reputation with a certain Bavarian shrug. You see it in the clean flower boxes, the Kneipp-style water basins in the park, and the clinic-like hotels. It is also a proper Allgäu town, and a pleasant one, with about seven thousand people, cow bells in the background, and a brewing tradition that makes the fasting look like a very optional part of life.
The setting is the Nagelfluh range, a line of rounded green peaks made of a conglomerate rock that looks like concrete full of pebbles. Hochgrat, at 1,834 metres, is the high point, and a cable car runs up from nearby Steibis. Below the ridge, the countryside is the soft, hilly dairy land that Allgäu is known for, with farms, small chapels, and meadows dotted with onion-domed churches. Cheese is a serious business here, and a slab of Bergkäse with bread is an honest lunch.
For riding, this is a part of the world that rewards a slow day. The roads around Oberstaufen are narrow and well kept, rolling across the hills in long, easy bends, with views toward the Alps, and the border with Austria's Bregenzerwald lies just to the south. Lake Constance is about thirty kilometres to the west, and Lindau, on its island, is a pleasant detour. Be aware of tractors and cyclists on the lanes, and of wet leaves and mud on farm roads after rain.
Fuel and food are easy. There are petrol stations along the main road through town, and cafes, bakeries and inns around the centre. Weather in the foothills changes quickly, with sudden showers and fog on the ridges, so keep a waterproof on top of the luggage. Spring, when the meadows are bright, and early autumn, when the cattle come down from the high pastures, are my choices.