Kalkar is where the Hochwald roads lead you if you let them, and Kalkar is full of surprises. It is a small brick town of fourteen thousand on the Lower Rhine plain, and its market square is a model of late medieval civic pride, with a stepped-gable town hall from the fifteenth century facing the church of St Nicolai, where a set of carved wooden altars made in the town's own workshops around 1500 draw art historians from far away. Hochwald 4 itself lies in the forest about seven kilometres from the centre, so you come to the town after the woods.
Then there is the reactor. On the town's edge stands a nuclear power station that was never switched on, a fast breeder built in the 1970s and 1980s at enormous cost, then abandoned after political opposition and doubts over safety, without ever producing a kilowatt for the grid. It has since become an amusement park, and the cooling tower is painted and now holds a carousel. It sounds like a joke, but it is true, and the sight of children's rides under a tower built for plutonium is oddly memorable.
For the ride itself, the Niederrhein delivers what it always does: broad skies, fields of maize, potatoes and sugar beet, and straight or gently bent roads that can be taken with a relaxed hand. The woodland roads near Hochwald 4 are narrower than the farm roads, with mixed tarmac and a few sandy edges, and they often have 70 km/h limits through the trees. The wind can be a nuisance, as there is almost nothing to block it, and a spring rain shower is quickly followed by sun.
Fuel is easy in Kalkar, Uedem and Xanten; all three have stations on the main roads. Coffee and cake are best in Kalkar's square, where terraces fill in warm weather. If the church is open, the altars are worth ten minutes in the cool dark, and the carved details, from small sheep to wrinkled saints, reward a slow look.
A weekday in September, when the harvest traffic has not yet peaked, is a good time to come.