Aschberg is a low hill on the edge of Maulbronn's forest, and the pond at its foot is the quietest of the monastery's waters. There are no signs to speak of, no ticket booth and no explanation, only a patch of water with a dam, a margin of reeds and trees leaning in from every side. That absence is itself a kind of history. The monks who built it worked without fanfare, and the land has gone back to ordinary use, so what you find is a working landscape that has become a nature reserve without anybody planning it.
Maulbronn Monastery was founded in 1147 and is a UNESCO site, but its fame rests on the quality of its preservation. Almost every building of the medieval monastery survives, from the church and cloister to the refectory, the fountain house, the mill and the encircling wall, so you can read the full life of a Cistercian community in one place. The ponds, ditches and dams that fed all this make up part of the listing, and though the pond at Aschberg is not one of the stars, it belongs to the same story. The Faust legend is also tied to the place. The real Johann Georg Faust, an alchemist and charlatan of the sixteenth century, is said to have visited the monastery, and a tower in town carries his name.
The woods around the pond are a mixture of beech, oak and hornbeam, with a good carpet of wild garlic in spring that you can smell before you see it. Roe deer step out at dawn, and woodpeckers drum on the trunks. Paths are gravel or earth, suitable for a walk of a few minutes from the nearest lane, and roads in the area are narrow, quiet and well surfaced, with gentle curves. Tractors and cyclists are the main hazards, and fallen leaves and mud on the forest roads need respect.
Maulbronn is about two and a half kilometres away and has fuel, bakeries and a couple of inns, while Mühlacker and Bretten offer larger supermarkets. Spring, when the wild garlic blooms, and autumn, when the leaves turn, are the best times. Come in the early morning or the evening, when the light slants between the trunks and the surface of the pond is smooth enough to hold a perfect reflection.