Few places in northern Germany are as carefully protected from people like us as Wilsede. The village sits in the middle of the Lüneburg Heath nature reserve, one of the oldest in the country, and it is closed to motor traffic. Bikes included. The sandy lanes leading in are for walkers, cyclists and horse-drawn carriages, and the car parks on the edge, at places like Undeloh and Niederhaverbeck, are where you leave the machine. Take it as a gift rather than a punishment. A short walk in boots, after hours on the saddle, is exactly the right pace for this landscape.
The heath itself is not wild nature in the strict sense. It was made by centuries of grazing, when farmers let sheep strip the woods and keep the ground bare and acidic. What grows back is heather, juniper and birch scrub, and the hardy grey-horned Heidschnucken sheep still keep it that way. In late August and September the whole thing flushes purple and the air smells honeyed and dry, and that is when the reserve gets crowded. The Wilseder Berg, at 169 metres the highest point in the northern lowlands of Lower Saxony, is a gentle hill that gives a view over this carpet. Go on a weekday morning in early autumn, when the mist is still hanging in the hollows, and the effect is closer to a painting than a landscape.
On the way in, the approach roads through the reserve's edge are what you will remember. They are narrow, mostly smooth, and follow the lie of the land through birch and pine, with sudden openings into heather. Speed limits are low and enforced with a certain friendly stubbornness, and there are horses and cyclists, so ride as if you were a guest. Which you are.
Services are not in the heart of the heath. Bispingen, about ten kilometres off, is the nearest town of any size, and Egestorf and Handeloh have smaller shops and cafés. The village inns around the reserve serve heath lamb and buckwheat pancakes, and the baked buckwheat cake is a local classic worth sitting down for. Bring a jacket, because the open sand and the wind will remind you that you are in the north.