Hamburg · Holstein Switzerland Lakes
A 184 km loop from Bad Segeberg exit
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Why this ride
Rolling lakes, small ferries and a civilised touring rhythm. A 184 km loop that starts and ends near Bad Segeberg, about 3 h 10 of riding. On the way it passes Plön lake road, Malente and Eutin castle stop.
Roadbook
- Bad Segeberg exit
fuel
Bad Segeberg has a hill that should not be there. The Kalkberg rises out of the flat Holstein plain like a stray piece of the Alps, a block of limestone pushed upward by an underground salt dome, and on its flank there is an open-air arena where, every summer since 1952, the Karl May Festival has staged Wild West adventures with real horses, stuntmen and fireworks.
The Kalkberg also contains a cave system that is the largest bat hibernation site in Germany, with tens of thousands of bats, including several rare species, that spend the winter there. The caves are protected and closed to visitors in the cold months, but you can join guided tours in summer. The quarry that once cut into the hill has been turned into the performance venue, and the town's old brick houses and its lake, the Segeberger See, make a pleasant place to wander.
The riding around Bad Segeberg is easy and enjoyable. Roads run through the rolling country of central Holstein, with beech woods, small lakes and hedgerows, and the traffic is light outside the festival season. When the festival is on, the town is crowded and the roads clog with coaches, so avoid the Saturday evenings in July and August. The surface is generally good, and bends are gentle, with a few tighter turns around villages.
To the north, the lakes of Holstein Switzerland begin around Plön and Eutin, and to the south the road leads to Hamburg through the quiet farmland of Stormarn. Klein Rönnau, a village close by, has a small museum of rural life. Try a plate of Holsteiner Katenschinken, a smoked ham, in one of the old inns, and take a walk around the Segeberger See before you set off. In autumn the beech woods are glorious, and the lake mists linger over the water until mid-morning.
- Plön lake road
swim
Plön sits on a ridge between two lakes in the part of eastern Holstein that the locals call the Holstein Switzerland, a name that sounds absurd until you see the rolling, wooded country and the lines of blue water lying between the hills. The Great Plön Lake is the biggest lake in Schleswig-Holstein, with islands, bays and many smaller lakes around it, and the town of Plön, with thirteen thousand people, occupies a narrow strip of land between them. The altitude here is only twenty-eight metres, but the glacial landscape gives it a lot of character.
On the highest point stands the castle, a large white Baroque palace built for a duke of the Holstein-Plön line in the seventeenth century, later used as a school and still imposing today. It looks out over the lake and the town below, and the park around it has views that explain why the dukes chose the site. The old town below is small and attractive, with a street of low houses, a church and a market square that is a good place for a coffee.
The riding here is a pleasure. The roads wind around lakes and through beech woods, with gentle ups and downs, shaded avenues and glimpses of water through the trees. The surface is generally good, bends are easy and the pace is relaxed, so it is a good ride for a warm evening. The lake road is also a swimming spot, and in summer small beaches on the shores are popular with locals, with clear water and sandy bottoms in places. The water warms slowly, so it is refreshing rather than warm.
Plön has fuel, restaurants and cafés, and there are smoked-fish stands near the lake in season. You can also hire a boat or take a lake cruise if you want to see the shore from the water. The region is popular on summer weekends, so arrive early or ride on a weekday.
The best seasons are late spring, when the beech leaves are fresh green, and early autumn, when the colours turn and the lake is calm. This stop sits at the end of a ride that starts along the Elbe dikes and the Altes Land, a very different landscape of fruit orchards and flat marsh.
- Malente coffee
food
The thing about Malente is that it is really two villages that grew into one, Malente proper and Gremsmühlen, with a short stretch of the Schwentine river between them. The Schwentine rises in the hills near the Bungsberg, flows through the chain of lakes here, and eventually reaches the Kiel Fjord some sixty kilometres to the north, and in Malente it takes on the character of a lazy canal, moving slowly under bridges and between villas with gardens that run down to the water. You can sit at a café by the bridge and watch small boats pass, with the quiet noise of oars and the occasional quack of a duck.
The town makes a good coffee stop because it is geared to people who are not in a hurry. For more than a century it has been a health resort, with a spa park, a promenade and a handful of grand old hotels from the age when doctors prescribed fresh air, lakes and good walking. Cafés cluster around the station and along the water, with tables out in summer, and the cake is generous. The Kurpark has paths and benches by the Dieksee and the Kellersee, and on sunny days walkers and cyclists drift through it at a snail's pace.
Riding into Malente from the surrounding country is a pleasure of small things. The roads run through rolling farmland and beech woods, past lakes that flash blue between the trees, and there are many gentle bends and short hills. The tarmac is generally good, though some of the lanes are narrow, and in autumn the leaves collect on the corners. Eutin, a few kilometres to the east, has the palace and the opera festival, and Plön, to the south, has its castle on the great lake, so the area suits a loop of an afternoon.
For practical matters, the place has about eleven thousand people, which means fuel stations, supermarkets and bakeries, and a station with trains to Kiel and Lübeck if the weather turns. Parking a motorbike by the station or the Kurpark is easy. Go in the morning for the best light on the water, or in the late afternoon, when the day-trippers have left and the lakes turn to copper. Order the cake of the day and ask nothing more of the afternoon.
- Eutin castle stop
sight
Eutin's castle is easier to enjoy from the water side. Walk through the gardens at the back and the park slopes down to the shore of the Great Eutin Lake, with an avenue of old trees, a curving gravel path, and swans sliding across the surface in a V. The landscape garden was laid out in the English style in the early nineteenth century and is still planted with fine old trees, among them oaks and beeches that are well over a century old. On summer evenings an open-air opera festival is staged on a stage at the water's edge, and the sound carries across the lake.
The castle's moat and its low, brick-and-stucco front give it a gentle, domestic look, more country house than fortress, and the whole thing sits on what was once an island. It is only a short walk from the town centre, with its rose beds, its market square and its half-timbered houses, and a few good places for coffee. Rose growers in the area have given Eutin its nickname, and in June and July the town's gardens are in bloom.
The road to Eutin from the south, from Hamburg and the Segeberg country, runs through quiet farmland with big skies, past thatched farms and lakes glimmering between the trees. As you approach the lake district the countryside grows more rolling, and the road begins to bend. The surfaces are generally good, and there are many pleasant little lanes to explore. Traffic is light on weekdays, but summer weekends bring crowds heading for the beaches on the Baltic.
Eutin has about seventeen thousand people and plenty of filling stations, shops and cafés, while Malente has a spa-town feel and a long lakeside promenade. This is a good place to stop for lunch, with a choice of cafés on the market square. Kasseedorf, seven kilometres off, is a tiny village with a small manor house. If you can, stay until late afternoon, when the light on the water turns gold and the day-trippers leave for home.
- Back to Bad Segeberg exit
finish
Back at Bad Segeberg. That is the ride.