Hamburg · Weserbergland Proper Day
A 507 km loop from Bremen
Open this ride in the planner →
Why this ride
The north gets curves if you ride far enough. Out of Bremen and back again: 507 km, roughly 8 h 44 in the saddle. On the way it passes Hameln old town, Rühler Schweiz and Köterberg. Back roads rather than main roads, where the map allows.
Roadbook
- Bremen fuel gate
fuel
Bremen is the city of four animals, and you will meet them before you have parked: a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster standing on each other's backs in bronze beside the town hall. In the Grimm tale they set out to become musicians in Bremen, but they never actually get there, finding a robbers' house on the way, so the city is the destination of a story whose characters stopped short. The statue's front legs are polished gold by visitors rubbing the donkey's hooves for luck.
Bremen is a free Hanseatic city, a city-state in its own right with about half a million inhabitants, and its centre has the confidence of a place that has been rich for a very long time. The town hall and the huge stone Roland statue on the market square, dating from 1404, are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The Schnoor quarter, a tangle of small lanes with tiny houses, is a favourite for browsing and a coffee, while Böttcherstraße is a short, brick-built street from the 1920s with a distinctive, slightly eccentric character, and a carillon of Meissen bells that plays at midday.
This is also coffee country. Bremen has been a major coffee port for more than a century, and the smell of roasting beans still drifts over the city on some mornings. The Beck's brewery sits beside the Weser, and a cold glass of it is a fitting end to a ride. Fish and kale are traditional, and a proper Bremen dish is Kohl und Pinkel, cabbage with smoked sausage, which is more of a winter proposition.
For a rider, Bremen is the end of the Fairy Tale Route and a place for fuel, a meal and a stroll, but not for the riding itself. Roads around the city are flat, busy and straight. Stuhr, just to the south, has plenty of stations and supermarkets, and the road network is dense. The best part of arriving is the approach along the Weser, with its green banks and sea breeze. Park near the market, as the old centre is largely pedestrian, and explore on foot. Allow some time for the trams, which are many and efficient, and give them room.
- Hameln old town
food
Hameln, known to English speakers as Hamelin, owes its fame to a piper. According to the legend, recorded in the town's chronicles, in 1284 a stranger in a coloured coat promised to rid the town of rats, led them into the Weser with his pipe, and when the townspeople refused to pay, he led away their children as well. The story has been told by the Brothers Grimm and by Robert Browning, and the town has embraced it wholeheartedly: rat-shaped souvenirs, a pied piper show in summer, and bronze rats on the pavements.
Behind the legend lies a handsome town. Hameln sits on the Weser river, and its old centre is a showcase of Weser Renaissance architecture, with richly carved half-timbered houses, stepped gables, and decorative stonework. The Hochzeitshaus, or wedding house, and the Rattenfängerhaus, the Rat-Catcher's House, are two of the finest. The streets are pedestrianised, with the rat motif repeated on every corner, and the whole centre is easy to explore on foot after you park the bike.
The riding around Hameln is gentle and pleasant. The Weser Uplands, with their wooded hills, castles, and half-timbered villages, begin here, and the B83 follows the river upstream toward Bodenwerder and Holzminden. The roads are smooth, with long easy curves, and the scenery is soft rather than dramatic. Traffic in town can be busy, and the one-way systems are confusing, so use the car parks on the edge and walk in. In summer, weekend visitors fill the pedestrian streets, and midweek mornings are quieter.
Fuel and food are no trouble in a town of nearly sixty thousand people. There are stations on the main roads, supermarkets, and a wide choice of cafes and restaurants, from traditional inns serving pork and potato dishes to ice cream parlours on the squares. Aerzen, a smaller town about nine kilometres away, is quieter. In summer, the Piper play is staged on Sundays in front of the Hochzeitshaus, and it makes a good break. Winters are cold and damp, and the river can flood after heavy rain, but the old town looks lovely under frost.
- Rühler Schweiz
scenic
The name Rühler Schweiz is a small joke, in the way many German hill regions have been called Switzerland by proud locals who wanted to say something flattering about steep ground and green woods. It is not Switzerland, and it makes no claim to altitude, but it is a pleasant, wooded patch of the Weser Uplands, close to the river near Bodenwerder, where the land rises into forested ridges and narrow valleys, and the road finds a rhythm of gentle bends and sudden views.
The Weser is the thing that gives the area its character. The river flows north between the Solling hills to the east and the Lipper Bergland to the west, and the villages along it have long depended on it for trade, transport, and fishing. Timber rafts floated down the river for centuries, and the half-timbered houses along the banks show the wealth that came from it. Much of the countryside is beech and oak forest, which turns gold and copper in October and offers a lovely light in the low sun.
For a rider, these are the roads you remember for the quiet. The surface is generally good, with some patches, and the bends are mostly open, with the odd tight corner where a road drops to a stream. Traffic is light, apart from tractors and the occasional tourist coach. The gradients are modest, but in wet weather the leaves and mud can make the surface slippery, and in autumn, fallen leaves are a hazard. Morning mist often hangs over the river and the fields.
Bodenwerder, about three kilometres away, is the nearest sizeable place, with fuel, a bakery or two, and several cafes. It is the town of Baron Münchhausen, the teller of impossible tales, who was born here in 1720. Kirchbrak, a smaller village, has limited services. Holzminden, farther upstream, is a larger town. The best seasons are spring, when the beech leaves are fresh green, and autumn, when the colours are rich. In winter, snow can fall on the hills, and the roads are not always cleared quickly.
- Köterberg viewpoint
photo
The Köterberg is the highest hill for miles around, a broad, bald dome rising to just under five hundred metres on the border between Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, and from the top the view over the Weser Uplands is wide and green. Forest, farmland, and small villages fold into one another toward the horizon, and on a clear day you can see for fifty kilometres or more. A television tower and a small cafe mark the summit, and in the evening the sunset is lovely.
The hill is popular with glider pilots and paragliders, who use the winds that rise against its slopes, and on a fine day colourful canopies drift above the meadows. In winter, a short ski lift runs on the northern slope when snow is deep enough. The hill is also part of the area known as Lipperland, a region with its own dialect, its own history of small principalities, and a long tradition of farming, linen, and brick-making. The villages around it, such as Polle, with its castle ruins above the Weser, are worth a detour.
The ride up is the pleasure. From the villages below, the road climbs in a series of curves through meadows and woodland, with a good surface and a moderate gradient, and the top opens suddenly into a broad, grassy summit. The bends are tight enough to be fun, and the traffic is light on most days. At weekends in fine weather, the car park fills, and the road is busier. Beware of loose gravel at the edges, and of wet leaves and mud after rain, and watch for cyclists on the climb.
Schieder-Schwalenberg, about nine kilometres away, has stations, shops, and cafes, and Polle is smaller. The summit cafe offers coffee and cake, with the view as a free extra. Bring a jacket, because the wind at the top is stronger than in the valleys, and the temperature can fall quickly. Late afternoon is the best time for photographs, when the light is warm and the haze softens the horizon.
- Back to Bremen
finish
Back at Bremen. That is the ride.