The Rhine at Neuwied is wide and brown and always busy with barges, and the flat basin around it was shaped by a catastrophe. About thirteen thousand years ago the Laacher See volcano, a little to the west, erupted with tremendous force and blanketed the area in pumice and ash, and the same tephra layer can still be found in sediments across much of Europe. Today the basin is orchards, vegetable fields and quarries for pumice and tuff, a quiet and fertile ground that gives no hint of its violent origin.
Neuwied itself is a town with an unusual history. Count Friedrich III of Wied founded it in 1653 after the Thirty Years' War had emptied the district, and he offered freedom of worship to anyone who would come. Lutherans, Reformed Christians, Mennonites, Moravians and Jews settled here, and the town grew rich on clockmaking and craft. Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, the founder of the cooperative banking movement, lived for a time in the district, and his name is on banks across Germany. Roman forts dot the area as well, since the frontier started a short distance north, and a big fort once stood at Niederbieber.
The numbered towers on this label belong to the Upper Germanic Limes, which has its western end at the Rhine near here. The riding is straightforward. Roads through the basin run flat among villages, with the busy Rhine road close by and quieter lanes through fruit plantations. Heading east, the land rises quickly into the Westerwald, and the bends begin. Heading west across the river, Andernach has a fine medieval town wall and a remarkable cold-water geyser, reached by boat from the Rhine bank, which is said to be the tallest of its kind in the world.
Neuwied has all the usual services, including petrol and a long riverside promenade, and Andernach on the opposite bank is a pleasant place for lunch. Spring is blossom time in the orchards, and early autumn brings the grape harvest on the slopes nearby. Avoid the hour of the commuter rush, and cross the river by the bridge or one of the car ferries for a change of scene.