The Barnim plateau looks plain until you ride it. East of Bernau and north of Berlin, it is a broad swell of land left by the glaciers, with fields of rye and rapeseed rolling to the horizon, small woods of pine and oak, and tidy villages built around churches made of fieldstone, the rough granite boulders that the ice dropped across the whole region.
The label points to Spreewald, a maze of canals and wooded islands more than a hundred kilometres south-east, where the roads end at the water and boats take over. The ride from there to here swaps that waterworld for a sea of fields, and the contrast is part of its charm. Local roads are smooth, wide and almost empty, often lined with avenues of lime, chestnut or maple that give long stretches of shade. In some villages, the old cobbles still run through the centre, and they can be slippery in the rain.
Werneuchen, a small town with a brick church and a broad market place, was home in the twentieth century to an airfield, and later became known for the sunflower fields and wind farms that cover the land nearby. In July, the sunflowers bloom in huge yellow blocks, and in late summer the cranes gather on the stubble in the evenings. In winter the plateau is bleak and windy, with snow blowing across the road, and the low sun gives a pink light.
Fuel is easy, since stations line the main roads to Bernau, and Werneuchen has a few shops. Village inns serve plain fare, usually pork or fish with potatoes, with beer from a nearby brewery. Be careful of deer on the roads at dusk, and of farm machinery during harvest, when tractors fill the lanes and mud drops from their tyres.