Hamburg · Sachsenwald and Elbe-Lübeck Canal Backroads

A 158 km loop from Hamburg south-east edge

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Why this ride

Forest shade, canal villages and a clean south-east escape. Out of Rothenburgsort and back again: 158 km, roughly 3 h 10 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sachsenwald forest road, Lauenburg old Elbe town, Mölln lake stop and Ratzeburg island.

Roadbook

1. Hamburg south-east edge start · 20 m

   The Vier- und Marschlande, the Four Lands and the Marsh Lands, spread out to the south-east of Hamburg, and this starting point at the edge of the city is the doorway to them. For several centuries this has been the garden of Hamburg: a low, fertile floodplain of the Elbe where farmers grow vegetables, flowers and fruit under glass and in the open, and send them into the city's markets. The land is protected by dikes and drained by a network of ditches, and the old farmhouses, thatched and half-timbered, sit on mounds at the edge of the fields.

   Rothenburgsort, the district just to the north, is one of the places where the city's industrial past is most visible. A neo-Gothic water tower, built in the nineteenth century and now empty, stands among the warehouses, and the old workers' quarter, almost entirely destroyed in the firestorm of 1943, has been rebuilt with plain, sensible blocks. The Elbe's many channels and locks run through the area, and boats work them day and night.

   The ride begins in a tangle of bridges, railway lines and slip roads, and the first quarter hour demands attention. Once you are through, the road opens out on the dike, and it's a long, flat run through the marshes towards Bergedorf and the edge of the Sachsenwald. Corners are rare, but the views are wide, with great skies, grazing cattle and, in spring, fields of tulips and rape. The wind is the main player, and on the dike you feel every gust.

   There is no shortage of fuel at the start, because the city has stations in every direction. Once in the marsh, the choice narrows, so fill up here and carry on. Bergedorf, a few kilometres to the east, has a castle, an old centre and plenty of cafés for a first coffee. Start early on a weekend, when the traffic on the city's exits is light, and the market gardens are just waking up. By the time you reach the Elbe's tidal banks, the city will already feel far behind.

2. Sachsenwald forest road forest · 55 m

   The Sachsenwald is the largest forest in Schleswig-Holstein, a broad sweep of beech, oak and spruce on sandy ground just east of Hamburg, and it has an unusually personal history. In 1871 Kaiser Wilhelm I gave it to Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor who had united Germany, as a reward for his services, and Bismarck made his home on its edge, in Friedrichsruh. He lived there for much of his later life, entertained statesmen and walked the forest paths, and he is buried in a mausoleum a short distance from the old house, in a simple chapel in the trees.

   The forest road runs at about fifty-five metres above sea level, across a gently rolling surface of glacial sand and gravel. The corners are soft, the surface is mostly smooth and the trees press close on both sides, giving the ride a rhythmic, tunnel-like quality. In autumn the leaves of the old beeches turn bronze and fall in drifts on the verges, and in spring the forest floor is carpeted with wood anemones. Deer and wild boar are common, and the forest has a reputation for fine mushrooms.

   Because the Sachsenwald is a working forest, you will meet timber lorries, cyclists, walkers and horse riders, so slow down on blind bends. Weekends can be busy near the car parks. The villages on the edge, Witzhave, Wohltorf and Dassendorf, are small, with quiet streets and a handful of bakeries. Aumühle, a short ride away, is where Bismarck's estate lay, and the local museum tells his story.

   Reinbek, a town of twenty-five thousand about seven kilometres off, has a Renaissance castle, a mill, and plenty of fuel and food. It is the sensible place to refuel, since the forest villages have few pumps. A good approach is to ride the forest on a weekday morning, when it is quiet, and to bring a little water. When the sun comes through the high trees and the light falls in shafts on the road, it is hard to want to be anywhere else.

3. Lauenburg old Elbe town sight · 20 m

   Lauenburg sits on a steep bank above the Elbe, a small town with an old centre that tumbles down the hill in two levels, the upper town and the lower town, joined by narrow alleys. For centuries it was a toll station on one of the most important trade routes in northern Europe. Salt from Lüneburg went by barge and cart up the old Salt Road to Lübeck, and the Stecknitz Canal, an early artificial waterway, linked the Elbe to the Baltic. Boats, merchants and customs men all passed through Lauenburg, which is why the old houses are so good.

   The town stands where the Elbe-Lübeck Canal begins, a waterway of 1900 that replaced the old route, and it is also the capital of what was once the Duchy of Lauenburg. The Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck was given the title of Duke of Lauenburg on his dismissal in 1890, a rather odd consolation prize. The little museum of Elbe shipping, in the lower town, tells the story of the river and its boats.

   The Elbe has also been a destroyer here. In the floods of 2013 the river rose to record levels, swamped the lower town and left mud in the streets and cellars, and the townspeople are justly proud of the way they cleaned up. At twenty metres above sea level, the point is high enough to be safe, but you can see the flood marks on the walls of the old houses.

   A motorcycle ride here is a delight, with an old river road winding along the Elbe through villages like Artlenburg and Echem, past dikes and meadows where cattle graze. The surface is mostly good, the corners long and easy, and the traffic light outside the summer weekends. Lauenburg is a town of nearly twelve thousand, with fuel stations, supermarkets and a few cafés in the old town. Climb the steep alleys on foot, and look back at the river from the top. It is a good view of a working river.

4. Mölln lake stop swim · 15 m

   Mölln is a town built between lakes, and the one to head for is the Stadtsee, the town lake, which laps right up to the old centre and has a small public beach, a lawn and a landing stage for pedal boats. The water is clear, gently sloping and mild by midsummer, and the park behind the beach is shaded by old trees. You change on the grass, nobody minds, and an hour in and out of the water is worth more than any amount of roadside coffee. Smaller lakes lie around the town, the Schulsee, the Hellbachsee and others, each with its own bathing place and its own reed margin.

   The lakes are the legacy of the ice age, and they sit along the line of an old glacial meltwater valley. Around them the land is gently hilly, wooded with beech and oak, and the surrounding nature park, the Lauenburg Lakes, is full of paths, boat landings and quiet corners. In the Middle Ages the lakes were part of a trade route, since the salt barges from Lüneburg reached Lübeck by a chain of waterways and canals that passed through here. The old Stecknitz canal, one of the oldest artificial waterways in Europe, was dug in the fourteenth century, and the Hanseatic city of Lübeck held Mölln as a pawn for nearly three centuries, to protect the salt road.

   The ride in is one of the nicer approaches to the Baltic from Hamburg. Roads run through beech woods and across farmland, with views of lakes flashing between trees and a lot of gentle bends. The tarmac is mostly good, and the traffic is light on weekdays. On hot weekends it fills with bathers and cyclists, and parking near the town lake can be hard to find, so an early start helps. In autumn the woods turn gold and the lakes are quiet.

   Water safety is simple common sense. The bathing places are marked, and lifeguards are on duty at the main beach in high season. Do not dive into unknown water, and keep clear of the paddle boats. With about eighteen thousand people, Mölln has fuel stations, supermarkets and many cafés and restaurants, and the old centre, with its crooked streets and brick church, is a short walk from the lake. Bring a towel, because it is easy to forget it, and a dry layer for the ride afterward.

5. Ratzeburg island coffee food · 20 m

   Coffee in Ratzeburg is a small expedition, because the old town is an island. You cross one of three causeways, park near the cathedral and walk the cobbled lanes, with the lake glinting at the end of every street. The island is only a few hundred metres across, and it takes less than half an hour to walk around, but it is packed with history and has a number of cafés where you can sit with a pot of coffee and a slice of cake.

   The cathedral dominates the island. Begun in the 1160s by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, it is among the oldest large brick churches in northern Germany, a plain and sturdy building of dark red brick with a tall nave and heavy towers. Inside, the stone is austere, and the light is soft. The duke built it as a statement of Christian rule over the Slavic lands he had just conquered, and when you stand in front of it you can feel the intention.

   Another figure is tied to the town. The sculptor and writer Ernst Barlach spent part of his youth here, and the town has a museum dedicated to his work, in a pair of buildings on the island, with his brooding wooden and bronze figures, including a number of drawings and plays. Barlach is best known for the floating angel in Güstrow and for his war memorials, which the Nazis later removed as degenerate. Even if sculpture is not your thing, the museum is quiet and compact and well worth half an hour.

   For riders the island is easy to reach. The approach from Hamburg is a straightforward run through farmland and lakes, and the roads near the town are scenic and gentle. Cobbles on the island are rough and slippery after rain, so park at the edge and walk. The town has about fourteen thousand people, with fuel stations and supermarkets on the mainland side, and plenty of cafés on the island. Weekends in summer are busy, with tourists and rowers, so the best time is a weekday morning, when the light on the water is silver and the cathedral bell rings the hour. Take your coffee outside, if you can, and look at the water.

6. Bad Oldesloe return gate fuel · 12 m

   It has about twenty-four thousand inhabitants, fuel stations, supermarkets and cafes, and the main road passes right through, so it works well as a fuel stop on the journey between the two great Hanseatic cities. The motorway runs a few kilometres west, but the old road is more interesting.

   The town grew rich on salt. Brine springs rise here, and the salt works provided a living for centuries, in competition with nearby Lüneburg and Lübeck. The town added the title Bad, meaning spa, to its name when it became a brine bath, and visitors came to take the waters in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The salt works have gone, but a pleasant spa park and a museum recall the trade, and the Trave runs through the town in a pretty, tree-lined course.

   For a rider, the road to Bad Oldesloe from Hamburg runs through gently rolling farmland, with sections of avenue lined with old trees, and the surface is generally good. The speed limit changes frequently, and speed cameras are common near the town, so keep a watch. It is a convenient stage on a day that heads towards the Baltic coast or the lakes of Holstein, and the surrounding countryside is pretty in a quiet way: hedgerows, small woods, and meadows full of cattle.

   The Trave is a small, winding river that begins in the Holstein hills and flows through Bad Oldesloe and Lübeck to the Baltic at Travemünde. Along the way, it passes through reed beds and wet meadows that are rich in birds, and canoeists enjoy the quieter stretches. Rümpel, a village three and a half kilometres away, is a small place with a few houses and a church. Fill up here and have a coffee before setting off.

7. Back to Hamburg finish · 20 m

   At the end of a ride from the east, the road drops into Hamburg's old industrial quarters, and the city seems to gather itself in. Rothenburgsort and Hammerbrook are the districts around the point, and they carry a darker history than most. In July 1943, during the bombing of the city, a firestorm swept through these streets, killing tens of thousands and flattening whole neighbourhoods. Rebuilding came in the plain, practical style of the 1950s, and little of the older city survives. A few ruined walls and one or two memorial plaques remain.

   Just to the west lies the HafenCity, one of the largest urban redevelopment projects in Europe, where old warehouses and new glass blocks sit side by side along the harbour. The Elbphilharmonie, the concert hall opened in 2017 on top of an old brick warehouse, is the showpiece, and from its public plaza you can look across the whole port. The Speicherstadt, the red-brick warehouse district, was listed by UNESCO in 2015 and is at its best in the evening, when the lights come on and are reflected in the canals.

   The ride in is a mixture of dike road and urban motorway. After the open marshes and the quiet of the Vier- und Marschlande, the last stretch is tight and busy, with bridges, ramps, tunnel mouths and a lot of trucks. Take it slowly, keep your lane and watch the signs, because it is easy to take the wrong exit and end up in the port. Weekday evenings are heavy, and Sundays are far easier.

   At twenty metres above sea level, the point is on the edge of the old floodplain, near the Elbe's bridges. Fuel is easily found, with stations along the main roads and bigger supermarkets nearby. Park near the harbour and walk for twenty minutes, because the city's best view is on foot. The ships sound their horns as they come and go, the gulls cry, and the day winds down to the smell of salt water and diesel.

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