Hamminkeln gives this stretch of the Lower Rhine its odd claim to a place in military history. On the morning of 24 March 1945, as part of the Allied operation to cross the Rhine, thousands of British and American airborne troops landed around Hamminkeln and Wesel by parachute and glider, in daylight, into a countryside of farms and woods, and the fighting was fierce. Many gliders were shot down, and the losses were heavy. The area has quiet memorials, and it is worth knowing that the fields you ride through carry that history as well as the older, Roman one.
The Roman story is subtle. The Lower German Limes was a frontier of forts, watchtowers, roads and harbours stretching from near Bonn to the North Sea, and its remains are largely buried in the Rhine's floodplain. Flürener Feld 3 is one of a group of sites near Wesel where traces of Roman military activity lie under the plough, and it fits into the larger picture of a river frontier that was held for four centuries before the empire's armies withdrew in the fifth century.
For a rider, the interest lies in the landscape in between, and the best of it is the Bislicher Insel nature reserve, a floodplain where the Rhine, left to roam, has made oxbow lakes, reedbeds and meadows. Herds of Konik horses graze there, and in winter the area fills with white-fronted and bean geese that fly in from Siberia, so that the sky is loud at dawn and dusk. Roads along the dike are quiet, with views across the water, though some are closed to motor traffic, so respect the signs.
The land is flat and the weather is changeable, with rain that can arrive in a moment from the west. Spring is bright, with blossom in the orchards, and the late summer harvest fills the roads with tractors. Autumn mists suit the geese.
Wesel, with more than sixty thousand inhabitants, and Hamminkeln, with nearly thirty thousand, both have fuel and bakeries. Pick up a snack at a Bäckerei, since the area is mostly farmland. Bunnik-Vechten, on the ride list, lies across the Dutch border near Utrecht, where another Roman fort stood on the Rhine, and the trip crosses the Rhine delta into the Netherlands.