Xanten is an old Roman town that still behaves like a small, cosy market town on the Lower Rhine, and right next to it lies one of the largest archaeological parks in Germany. Colonia Ulpia Traiana, CUT for short, was founded around AD 100 under the emperor Trajan, who gave it the rank of a colonia and his family name. At its height it was a walled city of several thousand people, the second most important Roman city in the province of Lower Germany after Cologne.
After Rome's power faded, the city was abandoned and its stones carted away for building, which ironically preserved its ground plan beneath open fields. The LVR Archaeological Park has rebuilt parts of it at full scale: a section of the city wall with a gate, a temple partly raised on its original podium, a large amphitheatre that hosts summer events, and a reconstructed inn and bath house. A modern museum built over the original baths shows the finds. Xanten itself grew up around the burial place of a Christian martyr, Victor, and its Gothic cathedral of St. Victor dominates the town. Legend also makes Xanten the home of Siegfried, the dragon-slaying hero of the Nibelungenlied.
The Lower Rhine is flat. Very flat. Roads run along dykes and between farms and willow-lined meadows, with church towers and windmills marking the horizon. It is relaxing riding, but the wind can be strong and constant off the open country, and long straights tempt you to forget the frequent speed cameras in towns. The real charm lies in the small river roads, the ferry crossings of the Rhine, and the light, which in the late afternoon turns the water silver and the brick villages warm.
Xanten has fuel, supermarkets and plenty of cafés around its market square, so it is an easy stop. The two lakes created by gravel extraction just outside town are popular for swimming and sailing in summer. Give the archaeological park a couple of hours if you can; it is spread over a big area and best explored on foot. In winter fog lies on the fields, and the reconstructed walls appear out of the white as if the city had just been built again.