Speyer is known for its cathedral, a huge Romanesque church where several medieval emperors are buried, but a few hundred metres away lies a quieter site that matters just as much. The Judenhof, the Jewry Court, was the centre of the medieval Jewish community, and it contains the ruins of a synagogue from the early twelfth century and a mikveh, a ritual bath, that is generally regarded as the oldest in Europe. The mikveh is reached by steep steps down into a cool, vaulted chamber where groundwater still collects. It is a remarkable place, and the stone is beautifully worked.
Speyer, together with Worms and Mainz, formed a trio of Jewish communities in the Rhineland known by the acronym SchUM, from the first letters of their medieval Hebrew names. They were centres of learning and law that shaped Ashkenazi Jewish life for centuries, and the sites were added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2021. The story also includes persecution, as the communities suffered massacres in the time of the Crusades and again in the fourteenth century, and the history of the court is part of that.
The riding around Speyer is flat and easy. The city lies on the western bank of the Rhine, in the Palatinate, and the roads run through the plain with its asparagus fields, tobacco and orchards. To the west, the Pfälzer Wald and the Wine Route offer more varied riding, with vineyards and half-timbered villages. Within the city, expect cobbles near the cathedral, a busy centre and bridges across the Rhine, with traffic building at rush hour. Spring and early autumn are the pleasant seasons, and the city has a well-known market and festival culture.
Speyer has about 50,000 people and all the services you need, with fuel, supermarkets and many restaurants and cafés, and parking for bikes is easy outside the pedestrian centre. The Technik Museum on the edge of town is surprisingly big, with aircraft and a Soviet space shuttle on display. Try a Saumagen, the stuffed pig's stomach that is the Palatinate's most famous dish, if you are brave, or a slice of Zwiebelkuchen, onion tart, with a glass of young wine in the autumn. Walk down to the Rhine and look across the flat river towards the Black Forest on a clear day.