Hamburg · Wümme, Teufelsmoor and Artists’ Villages

A 194 km loop from Hamburg west edge

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Why this ride

Soft northern light, moor roads and café timing west of the city. A 194 km loop that starts and ends near Ottensen, about 3 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Buxtehude exit, Zeven country roads, Worpswede artists’ village and Ottersberg Wümme roads.

Roadbook

1. Hamburg west edge start · 10 m

   Altona was Danish until 1864, a fact that surprises many visitors, and the quarter still feels a little apart from the rest of Hamburg. The water is just ten metres or so below the street at this point. It is the part of Hamburg most closely tied to ships and the sea, and you can smell it: tar, diesel, wet rope and fish.

   Altona's Fischmarkt is famous for its Sunday morning gathering, which starts before dawn and draws everyone from party-goers on the way home to families buying eels and bananas by the crate. If your ride starts at the weekend, it is an extraordinary place for a pre-ride breakfast. The Elbchaussee, the long road that runs west along the river high above the water, passes grand merchants' villas and white mansions with gardens sloping down to the shore. It is lovely but slow, with many traffic lights and a low speed limit, and the cobbled and tram-free surfaces in the old quarters are better treated with respect when wet.

   From here the way west is a gentle transition. Past Blankenese, where stepped lanes climb a wooded hillside, the road stays near the river, and the ferries that cross the Elbe, among them the passenger boats on the public transport network, give a flavour of the harbour city. Cafes and bakeries are plentiful in Ottensen, with its converted factories and independent shops, and the Altona district has fuel stations on the main routes, so the practical side of a start here is easy. Do be careful in the old streets, where delivery vans, cyclists and trams create a puzzle every few hundred metres.

   The best light is early morning or late afternoon, when the sun picks out the river and the cranes. Spring and autumn are nicest, with fewer crowds and clearer air, and winter has its own raw beauty when the wind brings sleet off the water. Take a moment on the bank before you ride away: watching a container ship the size of a small town slide silently past makes the road ahead seem pleasantly modest.

2. Buxtehude exit gate fuel · 5 m

   Buxtehude is the town of the hare and the hedgehog. In the Low German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, the hedgehog challenges the hare to a race, and wins by tricking him, with his wife waiting at the finish line looking just like him. The story is set on the heath near Buxtehude, and the town celebrates it with statues and a fountain. The name has also become a German byword for a remote place, as in the saying that someone is living in Buxtehude, which is a bit unfair to a lively Hanseatic town of nearly forty thousand.

   The old centre is built around the Fleth, a small canal that once brought boats right up to the merchant houses, and many of the half-timbered buildings and brick warehouses have been restored. The market square has a handsome town hall, and there are cafes and restaurants beside the water. Fuel and supermarkets are on the outskirts, and coffee is available on every corner.

   Buxtehude is the gateway to the Altes Land, the vast orchard country along the south bank of the Elbe, and this is the reason many riders come. In late April and May, when the apple, cherry and pear trees bloom, the whole landscape is covered in white and pink, and the old farmhouses with their brick-patterned gables and ornate doorways stand among the blossoms. The roads run along the dikes and canals, flat and gentle, with a few sharp bends, and the blossom festival draws huge crowds. Jork, six kilometres away, is the centre of the region, with a fine church and a number of attractive old houses.

   In autumn, the orchards are heavy with apples, and farm stalls sell them by the crate, along with cider and jams. The wind off the Elbe can be strong and cold, and the sky is wide and bright. At the weekend the roads fill with cyclists, and it is wise to ride early. After a day among the trees, a coffee and a slice of apple cake in Buxtehude make a welcome end.

3. Zeven country roads scenic · 20 m

   Zeven lies in the middle of the Geest, the sandy ridge of country that runs through the heart of Lower Saxony between the marshes of the coast and the lowlands of the south. The land is gently rolling, with pine woods, heath remnants, big farms and wet meadows in the valleys, and the villages are built around old churches and clusters of oaks. It is not a landscape that shouts, and it makes for easy riding, with long, quiet roads that curve between fields and woods and rarely see much traffic.

   The town has an old and surprising history. A Benedictine convent was founded here around the end of the tenth century, and for several hundred years it was an important religious house, with a church that still stands in the town centre. After the Reformation it became a Protestant foundation, and the convent buildings remain a landmark, with a quiet, cloistered feel that contrasts with the busy market. The surrounding region was also the site of one of the more curious episodes of the Napoleonic wars, the Convention of Klosterzeven in 1757, in which the Hanoverian army surrendered to the French and which was repudiated within months. It shows how important this small town once was.

   The roads in the countryside around Zeven are among the more relaxed in the region. They wind through villages with brick farmhouses, through patches of birch and pine, and across small streams, with gentle bends and a smooth surface for the most part. In summer the air smells of cut hay and resin, and in autumn the mist lies in the valley bottoms. Be wary of tractors and farm trailers, especially at harvest time, and of deer at dawn and dusk. Wind on the open stretches can be strong, but the woods give shelter.

   Zeven has about twelve thousand people, so fuel stations, supermarkets and bakeries are in good supply, and the market square has several cafés and a Saturday market. Parking is simple. There are no great sights to hurry toward, and that is part of the charm: the point is the rhythm of the road, the long views across the fields, and the way the afternoon light turns the farms gold. A weekday in spring, when the hedges are in blossom and the fields are green, is a pleasure.

4. Worpswede artists’ village sight · 17 m

   Worpswede began as a rebellion. In 1889 a handful of young painters, tired of the academies and their studio light, moved to a village in the Teufelsmoor, the Devil's Moor, north of Bremen, to paint what they saw: black peat canals, birch trees, huge skies, and people who cut turf for a living. Fritz Mackensen, Otto Modersohn, Fritz Overbeck, Heinrich Vogeler and, a few years later, the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker made the village a household name among art lovers, and the colony they founded grew into something like a small, permanent festival of the arts.

   Today Worpswede is a village of around nine thousand people, with galleries, craft shops, studios and museums spread along a single winding main street. Vogeler's house, the Barkenhoff, with its white gables and garden, is open as a museum, and some of the buildings are experimental creations from the early twentieth century, with strange rooflines and expressionist brickwork. The village sits on a low hill, the Weyerberg, which at fifty-odd metres counts as a mountain in this flat land, and from its top you can see the moor stretching away in every direction.

   The moor is the real subject. Reed-fringed canals, flat meadows and tall pale sky make a landscape of quiet drama, especially in early morning when mist rises off the water and the cranes call. The roads around Worpswede are narrow and straight, running along drainage ditches, with sudden bends where they cross a canal. Surfaces can be patchy, because peat soil sinks, so keep an eye out for dips and ripples. On weekends the village is thick with day-trippers and cyclists, and you will do better on a weekday.

   Fuel is available in Worpswede and in Lilienthal, nearly nine kilometres away, which is a bigger town with supermarkets. The cafés along the main street do a good coffee and a slab of cake, and some serve a local speciality, a sweet bread with raisins. Give yourself an hour for the galleries, because the paintings are the best explanation of why the place looks the way it does.

5. Ottersberg Wümme roads photo · 12 m

   The Wümme is one of the quieter rivers of northern Germany, a dark, slow stream that winds through meadows and moorland east of Bremen, and the roads that follow it near Ottersberg are made of long, soft curves. The land is flat and wet, with reeds, alders and pollard willows along the banks, and on still mornings the mist hangs low over the water and the cattle stand in it to the knees. It is the sort of landscape painters came to find in the late nineteenth century, and many of them stayed.

   The most famous colony was at Worpswede, a little way to the north, but a smaller and gentler one grew up at Fischerhude, a village within Ottersberg's municipality, where the Wümme splits into channels and the thatched farmhouses sit among tall trees. The painter Otto Modersohn lived and worked there, and the village is still full of artists' studios, galleries and craft shops, with an old water mill and a number of lovely half-timbered houses. A walk along the river there gives you exactly the view the painters saw: still water, reflected trees and a low sky.

   The riding is easy and gentle. The roads are narrow and often straight, with occasional sharp corners where the road crosses a bridge or bends round a farm, and the surface is generally good, though patched in places. Traffic is light on weekdays, but fine weekends bring cyclists and tourists, particularly around Fischerhude, and parking there is limited. Keep an eye out for farm machinery and for deer on the verges. The weather comes off the North Sea, so a sudden shower is always possible, and the light after rain is superb.

   Ottersberg has about twelve thousand people in its municipality, so fuel stations, supermarkets and bakeries are on hand, and there are a few cafés in the village centre. For a photograph, the best spots are along the river near Fischerhude and on the meadow roads, particularly in the early morning or late evening, when the low sun picks out the trees and the water. Bring a layer, since the damp air of the moors can chill you quickly. A stop at a café for coffee and a slice of apple cake completes the picture.

6. Rotenburg return road food · 30 m

   Rotenburg on the Wümme is the town you eat in on the way home. It is a calm, prosperous place of about twenty-two thousand people, set on a stretch of the Wümme where the river is wide enough for rowing boats, with a market square, a handful of old half-timbered houses and a surprising number of good bakeries. It lacks the tourist crowds of the better-known towns, and that is exactly what makes it a good place to sit down with a plate and a pot of coffee.

   The local food is solid and unpretentious. In winter the regional dish is kale with Pinkel, a smoked, spiced sausage, served with boiled potatoes and mustard, and often followed by a schnapps. It is eaten after the first frost, according to local tradition, and there are even kale tours with a good deal of drinking. In summer, you will find asparagus, strawberries and fresh fish on menus, and every baker sells cakes in great variety. The roll with a slice of ham or cheese and a coffee is cheap and filling.

   The road home from Rotenburg runs across the flat plain toward Hamburg and Bremen, past peat moors, birch scrub and big sheds for poultry and pigs. The landscape is open and sometimes bleak in winter, with big skies and a few lines of poplars, but in spring and summer it is green and soft. The roads are straight and fast, so the wind is the main hazard, and a sudden crosswind from a passing lorry can be felt. Surfaces are mostly good. In late afternoon the sun goes low and golden behind you, and the shadows of the poplars stretch across the road.

   Practical matters are easy. Fuel stations are on the edges of town, supermarkets are in the centre, and parking is simple near the market. If you have time, a short walk along the Wümme to the old mill is a quiet reward, and the park nearby has benches and ducks. The town is a convenient place to rest before the last stretch of the day, and the drive back is easier on a full stomach. Dress for evening, since the air cools quickly once the sun drops.

7. Back to Hamburg west edge finish · 10 m

   Back to Hamburg west edge closes the day.

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