Three round lakes lie in a row beside the village of Schalkenmehren, and none of them is really a lake. They are maars, craters blasted out of the Eifel when rising magma hit groundwater and the whole thing detonated. The explosions threw out a ring of ash and broken rock, the hole filled with rain, and what remains is a perfect circle of still water in a bowl of grass and trees. The Eifel has dozens of them, and the Dauner Maare, just next to the town of Daun, are the best-known cluster: the Schalkenmehrener, Weinfelder and Gemündener Maar, each only a short walk from the next.
The Weinfelder Maar, also called the Totenmaar, has a small chapel on its shore and a reputation for sadness that comes from old plague stories. The Schalkenmehrener is the sociable one, with a camp site, a bathing beach and a few cafés. You can walk the shoreline in an hour. The last volcanic activity in the Eifel was only about eleven thousand years ago, which in the history of the planet is yesterday afternoon.
This is hill country rather than mountain country. The roads around Daun climb out of the valleys onto high plateaus of fields and conifers, then dip again into narrow wooded valleys, so a ride here is a pattern of long gentle sweeps with the odd hairpin where a stream has cut deep. The surface is mostly good, though patches of broken tarmac appear after hard winters, and the Eifel is well known among German riders, so on fine weekends there is a lot of company. The Nürburgring is within an hour, and you will sometimes hear it before you see anyone from it. The weather here can be wet and cool even in July, and fog on the heights is common in autumn.
Daun, four kilometres away, has about eight and a half thousand people, with fuel stations, a supermarket and a good selection of cafés. It is the sensible place to resupply. In the village itself you will find simple inns serving Eifel food: heavy, filling dishes of potatoes, sausage and sauerkraut, and a lot of pork, accompanied by a regional beer. The mineral water from nearby Gerolstein is excellent and sold everywhere.
The maars look their best in still, early light, when a skin of mist lies across them.