Rotenburg an der Wümme is a quiet district town of about twenty-two thousand people on the river Wümme, halfway between Hamburg and Bremen, and a convenient place to fill the tank on the way south. The landscape here is typical of northern Lower Saxony: flat or gently rolling, with heath and pine, wet meadows and the dark, boggy ground of the moors. Everything is green, and the sky is large.
The Wümme runs north-west through broad meadows to join the Lesum and then the Weser near Bremen, and the countryside around it is a mosaic of meadows, small woods and farms. The Wümmewiesen are a protected area with wet grassland, rich in birds, and storks and cranes are not unusual. The Teufelsmoor, the Devil's Moor, lies further west, and was settled in the eighteenth century by colonists who drained the peat bogs, cut turf and built long, low farmhouses along straight canals. The moor later attracted a school of painters, the Worpswede artists, who found something strange and beautiful in its misty light.
The riding is easy and pleasant rather than exciting. Roads run straight through the pines, with occasional bends around villages, and the surface is mostly good. Wind is the main variable, and it can be strong on the open land. The best time is spring, when the heath is waking up, or late summer, when the heather blooms purple. Early morning mist hangs over the meadows and gives the scene an almost Dutch air.
Rotenburg itself has a pleasant old church and a small museum, and the town is known for a large hospital and care foundation. Its position on the railway and the main road between the two big cities means that traffic is dense on the through roads, so leave them for the quiet lanes as soon as you can. There are plenty of cafes and bakeries around the market, and the fuel stations on the main roads are open late. Hemsbünde, a village a few kilometres away, has little more than a pub.