The Westensee lies a short way west of Kiel, a long, branched lake set in rolling country of fields, woods and low glacial hills. It is the biggest lake in the area, and around it lies a nature park that is roughly shaped like a lung between the city, the Kiel Canal and the Eider lowlands. The shore is a mixture of reed beds, small beaches, boat jetties and wooded banks, and the sense of calm after the city traffic comes quickly.
The area is dotted with country houses, the old manor estates that shaped the land of Schleswig-Holstein for centuries. Emkendorf, nearby, was a famous centre of cultural life in the late eighteenth century, when the owners welcomed poets, philosophers and politicians to a kind of salon in the country, and the place became a meeting point for the German Enlightenment and early Romanticism. The estate buildings and park still stand. It is a fitting backdrop for a lake whose shores are mostly peaceful and unbuilt.
For a ride this is a gentle beginning rather than a thrilling one. The lanes around the lake are narrow, with hedges called Knicks, low earth banks planted with hazel and hawthorn that divide the fields and that are a signature of Schleswig-Holstein. They give a feeling of riding in a green corridor, and they hold hedgehogs, hares and songbirds. The surfaces are mostly good, but farm traffic leaves mud at harvest and manure in spring, and the occasional tractor will take over the whole road. Expect cyclists on sunny afternoons, and watch out for walkers at the lake accesses.
Practically, the lake is a rural area with village shops and a few cafés, but not much in the way of fuel. Kiel, to the east, has everything, and Rendsburg to the north has plenty. Flintbek, on the rim of the nature park, is the nearest sizeable town. Fill up before leaving the city, take water, and enjoy the quiet. Early on a still morning, when mist hangs on the lake and the first cyclists are just setting off, it is easy to forget that a big port city is fifteen minutes away.