Why this ride
286 km round from Hamburg - plan on about 5 h 12 of riding. The stops in between: Mecklenburg and Schwerin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Mecklenburg Lakes and Schwerin Arc · part 1
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 286 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 5 h 12
- Journey
- Loop
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Hamburg east gate → Lauenburg fuel gate
75 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 75 km
Schwerin castle sight → Plauer See water stop
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 151 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 151 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hamburg
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.
2. Mecklenburg
3. Schwerin
4. Hamburg
Return visit. Read the place description above.