The Rendsburg High Bridge is a railway viaduct that does something unusual: it hangs a gondola from its steel framework, a transporter ferry swinging just above the water of the Kiel Canal. The bridge opened in 1913, built so that trains could climb high enough for ships to pass underneath while the town below stays connected across the canal. The railway loops around the town to gain height, so the whole structure reads like a giant iron ribbon laid over the landscape. It is the sort of engineering that makes people stop and stare, and bikers are no exception.
The canal itself is the busiest artificial waterway in the world by number of ships, linking the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic at Kiel and sparing vessels the long trip around Denmark. Standing on the bank you can watch container ships, tankers and the occasional yacht glide past at walking pace, close enough to hear the engines. The ferry that runs under the bridge, the Schwebefähre, still carries pedestrians and cyclists, and a few vehicles; check before you ride on, because it is a small deck and a motorcycle is not what it was designed for. Its schedule and capacity are best confirmed on the spot.
Rendsburg is a proper town of twenty-eight thousand people, with fuel, food and a pleasant old quarter, the Altstadt, and a fortress district of cobbled streets in the old garrison part. Büdelsdorf lies just across the water and has plenty of supermarkets and petrol stations. The riding in the flat country is gentle and honest: long straights, a lot of wind coming off the plain, and the occasional canal crossing by ferry that adds a bit of theatre to the day. Northern Germany is not for hairpins, but it is for rhythm, and the bridge is a good place to find it.
Approach from either bank on a quiet morning and you get the best view of the structure with the sun behind you. Gulls follow the ships, the air smells of diesel and brackish water, and the whole place hums with the low drone of engines that you stop noticing after a while. It is a good end to a ride, or an excellent excuse for a coffee break, with the steel girders overhead and the canal sliding by.