Hamburg · Lauenburg Elbe Banks and Lüneburg Return

A 469 km loop from Hamburg east edge

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Why this ride

Dike roads, old brick towns and a proper short day south-east. A 469 km loop that starts and ends near Hamburg, about 8 h 32 of riding. The stops in between: Lauenburg, Eldingen, Elbe and Lüneburg.

Roadbook

1. Hamburg start

   Hamburg opens up to the water. The Elbe runs through the city, the port covers a large chunk of it, and the harbour front is a long working landscape of cranes, container ships, tugs and ferries, with the sound of horns carrying across the water at night. The old warehouse district, the Speicherstadt, is a block of red-brick buildings on oak piles, built in the 1880s and now partly part of a UNESCO listing, with canals running between them and gabled facades reflecting in the water. Next to it, the HafenCity is a modern district whose centrepiece is the Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall in the shape of a glass wave on top of an old warehouse, opened in 2017 after many delays and a scandalous overrun in costs.

   The city has a mix of moods. The Reeperbahn is a famous street of bars, clubs and theatres in St Pauli, where the Beatles played in their early years, and on a Sunday morning, the fish market opens at dawn and is a place of loud stalls, hot coffee and people coming home from the night before. The Alster, two lakes in the middle of town, is surrounded by fine villas and parks, where sailing boats cross the water in summer. Churches such as the Michel, with a green copper tower, dominate the skyline, and the old tunnel under the Elbe, built in 1911, still lets pedestrians walk under the river.

   From Hamburg, the ride goes north-east toward Lübeck, the old Hanseatic capital, with a Gothic brick centre and its Holstentor gate. The road passes through the farmland of Schleswig-Holstein, flat, open and often windy, with brick villages, thatched farmhouses and long avenues. It is a relaxed ride, with moderate traffic and a good surface, and the sea is never far. In the city itself, traffic is heavy, parking is difficult, and a few tunnel and bridge routes can be blocked by incidents, so allow time for the Elbe crossings.

   Fuel is easy outside the centre and on the main roads. Eat a fish roll on the quayside or a plate of Labskaus, a salty mash of corned beef and potato, and have a coffee in a harbour café. Summer is the high season, but spring and autumn are quieter, with sharp light on the water. Rain can arrive at any moment, so a waterproof layer is not optional.

2. Lauenburg sight

   Lauenburg is where the Elbe stops being a big river and starts being a working waterway with serious ambitions. The town stretches along a steep bank, with the old town clinging to the hill and the lower town, the Elbstrasse, running along the water's edge, and the river below is wide, brown and busy with barges. For centuries this was a toll town, collecting dues from the traffic that moved between Hamburg and the Baltic, and the Elbe-Lübeck canal begins nearby, which once carried salt from Lüneburg to the sea.

   It was the capital of a small duchy, and Bismarck took the title Duke of Lauenburg when he was dismissed from office in 1890, a piece of local trivia that the town has not forgotten. Its riverside houses, many of them half-timbered, were long threatened by the Elbe's floods, and the water has left marks on the walls to show the high-water years. The altitude here is a modest twenty metres, so the river feels close, and on a misty morning the barges drift past like ghosts.

   The riding is simple and pleasant, mostly on flat roads through farmland, dikes and woods, with easy curves and good surface. The ride from Hamburg here is an easy hour or so, then on to Mecklenburg, where roads become quieter and the lakes begin. Traffic is lighter than around Hamburg, but trucks are common on the main road, so stay alert.

   With about twelve thousand people, Lauenburg has a petrol station and shops, and is a sensible place to refuel before heading into the quieter country of Mecklenburg. There are fish restaurants along the river, and a plate of fried herring or a bowl of eel soup, a north German classic, is good value. Ice cream is also a local passion in summer.

   Early morning or evening light is best, when the sun picks out the old roofs and the river turns to metal, and spring is nice when the hedges are in bloom.

3. Eldingen fuel
4. Elbe food

   Despite the name, there is no great river here. This Elbe is a village in the rolling farmland of southeastern Lower Saxony, between Salzgitter and Hildesheim, and the river that shares its name flows more than a hundred kilometres to the east. It is a quiet place of brick farmhouses, a church, fields of sugar beet, wheat and rapeseed, and gentle hills, close to the small towns of Baddeckenstedt and Holle in the valley of the Innerste.

   The landscape is the northern foreland of the Harz. On a clear day you can see the dark, wooded hills of the Harz on the southern horizon, and the low ridges around here, the Salzgitter hills and the Hainberg, give the roads a pleasant rhythm of short climbs, gentle descents and long views over the fields. In May the rapeseed turns the slopes bright yellow, and in autumn the beet harvest fills the lanes with tractors and mud, so watch the surface.

   The region has a strong industrial history hidden beneath the farmland. Iron ore found around Salzgitter led to the creation of huge steelworks in the 1930s, and the town grew rapidly around them, with some of its industry still active today. Hildesheim to the northwest is an old bishop's city with a cathedral and St Michael's Church, both on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and Wolfenbüttel to the east has a large ducal palace and one of the oldest libraries in Europe.

   The riding is easygoing: quiet country roads, some well surfaced, others patched and narrow, linking villages through fields and woods. There is little traffic outside rush hour, but watch for farm machinery and wildlife at dawn and dusk. The real curves are a short ride away, in the Harz around Goslar and the hills of the Innerste valley, where the roads climb through forest to dams and reservoirs.

   Elbe itself is small, so for fuel and shops head to Holle, Baddeckenstedt or Salzgitter, all within a few kilometres. Village bakeries and inns are found in the area, and a slice of cake and a coffee is a fine excuse to stop. If you were expecting to see the Elbe river, check the route: the Prignitz rides along that river lie far to the northeast, beyond Wolfsburg and Magdeburg.

5. Lüneburg sight

   Salt made Lüneburg, and the town looks as though it knows it. For more than a thousand years the brine springs under the old town were boiled down into white gold, which was carted to Lübeck and shipped across the Baltic to preserve herring, and the profits built a city of tall brick gables, grand merchant houses and a town hall that grew by accretion across six centuries.

   The salt that made the city also threatens it. The ground has sunk in places, as the brine was pumped out, and a few streets near the old salt works lean at odd angles, with houses tilting and church towers bent. The effect is surreal and charming, and it adds to the sense of an old town that is constantly shifting. The old harbour district, with its brick crane and its gabled warehouses, is the prettiest corner, and a cafe by the water is a good spot for a coffee.

   Lüneburg is also the gateway to the Lüneburg Heath, a wide landscape of sandy hills, junipers and purple heather that is one of the best known in Germany. The heather blooms in late August and September, and the heath sheep, the Heidschnucken, graze among the shrubs. The town's cuisine reflects that: roast Heidschnucke, buckwheat cakes with local cranberries, and heather honey. The roads around the heath are straight and quiet, with the surface mostly good and the traffic light, and a ride at dawn, with mist over the heather, is a memorable experience.

   Reppenstedt, four kilometres away, is a large village with supermarkets and fuel. The Elbe is a short ride to the north, with its dike roads and ferries, while to the south the heath rises gently towards the Wilseder Berg, the highest point in the region. The old town is partly pedestrian, so leave the bike on the edge and walk in. In the evening, the brick glows in the low sun, and the lanes fill with students from the university. Stay for dinner, and linger.

6. Hamburg finish

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