Peine is a steel town, and it has never pretended otherwise. A rolling mill has stood on the edge of the town since the nineteenth century, and the smoke, the chimneys and the sound of trains hauling girders still shape the skyline. The people who work in it live in tidy brick streets, and the main square has the honest, unshowy look of a place that makes things rather than sells postcards. As a fuel stop, it fits the mood perfectly: efficient, plain, with all you need and nothing you do not.
The town sits on the flat, rich farmland of the Hildesheim Börde, a landscape of loess soil that is among the most fertile in Germany. Fields of sugar beet, wheat and rape run to the horizon, and the roads across them are straight and fast. The Mittelland Canal, the great east-west waterway, cuts through the town, and watching a long barge slide past between the houses is an unexpected pleasure. In the Middle Ages the bishops of Hildesheim fortified Peine as a border outpost against the dukes of Brunswick, and the two were at war over it more than once, which explains why a flat farm town ever needed walls.
With nearly fifty thousand people, Peine has everything you could ask of a refuelling gate. Petrol stations sit along the main roads, and supermarkets, bakeries and snack bars are easy to find. It is a good moment to check tyre pressure, stow the jacket liner and buy a sandwich for later. Parking is easy, and the old market with its church is a few minutes' walk if you want to see something that is not a pump.
The riding from here is the business. Heading south and east you leave the flat Börde and begin to climb gently toward the low ridges of the Elm and the Harz foothills, and the roads change from long straights to rolling, curving lanes through half-timbered villages. Wind is a factor on the open plain, so expect gusts from the west and a feeling of being pushed. Morning is the best time, with the sun low behind you and the traffic still thin. Take a minute to enjoy the practical charm of a town that has decided to be itself.