Bückeburg Palace and Weser Villages

A 161 km loop from Hannover west

Open this ride in the planner →

Why this ride

A relaxed but worthwhile western loop with enough scenery to reset the head. 161 km round from Seelze - plan on about 3 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Stadthagen, Bückeburg palace sight, Porta Westfalica view road and Minden river stop. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.

Roadbook

1. Hannover west gate start

   Hannover has a gate in every direction, at least in this ride's plan, and the one in the west lies near Seelze, a town on the Leine river a few kilometres outside the city. The Leine is a quiet and rather muddy stream that winds through flat country, and from here the ride sets off west, into the Weser hills, toward Bückeburg and onward into the Harz foothills. For a rider the gate is simply a convenient place to start with a full tank, light traffic and an easy road out, and it avoids the knot of the city centre.

   The city itself deserves more than a glance. Hannover is better known for trade fairs than for beauty, and the Messe, the biggest exhibition ground in the world, fills the south-east of town, but the older story is more interesting. In 1714 the elector of Hannover became King George I of Great Britain, and for more than a century the two countries were linked under one crown. The Herrenhausen Gardens, laid out for the electors in the baroque style, are one of the finest in Europe, with clipped hedges, fountains and a long avenue of lime trees. Hannover is also the home of the Bahlsen biscuit and a well-known school of industrial design.

   The landscape west of the city is the north German plain turning into the first low ridges of the uplands. Roads are generally straight and fast across the flat sections, then wind through villages and over low ridges in the Weser and Deister hills, with brick farmhouses and half-timbered barns. Tree-lined lanes shade the road in summer, and the surface is generally good, though mud from farm vehicles can be slippery. Wind can be strong on open stretches.

   Seelze, with about thirty-three thousand people, has fuel stations, supermarkets and bakeries, and the larger city of Hannover supplies anything else. A good coffee and a slice of cake in a local bakery is the standard German start to a ride. Spring and autumn offer the best light, while winter brings fog and ice, and in summer weekends the roads of the Weser hills fill with motorcyclists, so choose a weekday when you can.

2. Stadthagen fuel gate fuel

   Stadthagen is the capital of a country that no longer exists. For centuries, the town was the seat of the counts and princes of Schaumburg, a small state between Hanover and the Weser, and the Renaissance castle, built in the sixteenth century, still stands at the edge of the old town, with carved gables. The mausoleum of the princes, in the grounds of the St Martini church, is decorated with a bronze sculpture of the Resurrection by the Dutch sculptor Adriaen de Vries, one of the masterpieces of its period in Germany.

   The town has about twenty-three thousand people, and is a practical stop, with fuel, supermarkets, bakeries and cafes. The market square has a Renaissance town hall and many half-timbered houses, and coal mines operated here until the 1960s, a part of the town's past that is recalled in a small museum. The ridge of the Deister, a wooded range of hills, rises to the south, and Bückeburg, with its palace, lies a short ride to the west.

   The roads around Stadthagen are flat to gently rolling, with farmland and woods, small villages and a calm atmosphere. This is the northern edge of the German uplands, and the roads head south toward the Deister and the Weser hills, climbing in gentle bends through beech woods. The surface is mostly good, though some of the minor roads are patched, and traffic is light.

   The weather is mild, but changeable, with rain showers at any time of year, so carry a waterproof. Summer is warm and pleasant, and the autumn colours in the Deister are lovely. A coffee at one of the cafes on the market square, with a slice of local cake, is a good way to spend a break, and the town is quiet in the evening. If you walk out to the Deister edge, you will find old mining relics half hidden in the beech woods, and the contrast between the tidy town and the overgrown pits is oddly moving.

3. Bückeburg palace sight scenic

   Bückeburg is a town to be seen from the inside of its palace, and the palace does not disappoint. Schloss Bückeburg, a Renaissance and Baroque complex surrounded by a moat, has been the seat of the princes of Schaumburg-Lippe for four hundred years, and the family still lives in part of it. A series of interiors are open to visitors, among them the Golden Hall, a magnificent room with an ornate, gilded ceiling. The gate and gardens are free to walk through, and the park around it is pleasant.

   The town and palace had a surprising cultural life. Johann Gottfried Herder, the philosopher, served as court preacher here in the 1770s, and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, a son of Johann Sebastian, spent most of his career as a court musician in Bückeburg. His music is occasionally played in the palace, and a small museum recalls the family. Another sight is the princely mausoleum, a neo-Romanesque building in the park with a vast golden mosaic dome that gleams as you step inside, one of the most striking interiors in Lower Saxony.

   For the rider, Bückeburg is a short stop and a gentle one. The palace sits right in the town, so park nearby and walk, and the surrounding streets are pleasant and quiet. There are cafes on the market square, including a good one for cake, and fuel is available on the edge of town. The ride from here goes through the Weser Hills or towards Minden, over small roads with a few bends and not much traffic.

   On a fine afternoon, sit by the moat and look at the reflection of the palace in the water. In early summer the garden is full of roses, and the trees are in full leaf. The area around Bückeburg is rich in small museums and manor houses, and a visit to any of them offers a glimpse of the old, small German states, with their courts, orchestras and eccentric rulers, before unification swept them away. It is a quiet history, and it fits well with a quiet town.

4. Porta Westfalica view road photo

   Here the Weser river does something that rivers in the north German plain rarely do: it cuts through a hill range. The Wiehengebirge arrives from the west and the Wesergebirge from the east, and between them the river has carved a gap about a kilometre wide, the Porta Westfalica, the Westphalian Gate. Behind it the land opens out into the great flat plain toward Hanover and the sea. For centuries this was a natural doorway, and the people who held it controlled the route.

   Two hills mark the gate. On the western one stands a huge monument to Kaiser Wilhelm the First, built in the 1890s in a heavy classical style with the emperor on a pedestal under a canopy, looking over the valley with a fairly confident air. Nobody has ever called it subtle. According to local legend, the hill was also a place where the Saxon leader Widukind once held out against Charlemagne, which is why the whole area has a faintly mythic reputation among Germans. You do not have to care about any of that to enjoy the view, which on a clear day stretches across the river, the towns of Minden and Porta Westfalica, and the plain spreading out beyond.

   The riding along the ridge roads is pleasant rather than dramatic. The roads climb in a series of curves through beech woods, then come out at points with long views. Surfaces are generally good, and there are some tight bends where the hill slopes steeply. Expect cyclists and weekend walkers in fine weather, and take care on damp days when leaves lie on the road. Early morning in autumn, with mist in the valley, gives the best light for photographs.

   Services are simple here. Porta Westfalica itself has more than thirty-six thousand inhabitants, so fuel, supermarkets and cafés are at hand within a couple of kilometres, and Minden, about five kilometres off, has a handsome old centre with a long history as a river town. Bad Oeynhausen is a spa town a little further. Park the bike at the base, and walk up if you want the full view.

5. Minden river stop swim

   With about eighty thousand people, it is a real city, with fuel, restaurants, shops and a railway station. The Weser here is wide and calm, with a promenade and a few cafes, and the old cathedral stands on a terrace above the water.

   Minden is the place where one great waterway crosses another. The Mittelland Canal, which links the Rhine and the Elbe, runs across the Weser on a huge aqueduct, so that ships pass over the river high above the heads of anyone on the bank. The first bridge dates from 1914, and a second one was built in the 1990s, and a visit to the site on a weekday often means a glimpse of a barge sailing across. The Weser itself is a busy waterway, and the lock and the old harbour are worth a walk.

   The cathedral is a fine Gothic hall church, rebuilt after the war, and the old town has a fair number of historic buildings, including the Rathaus and several handsome houses on the Weser embankment. Just north of the city, the Porta Westfalica, a narrow gorge between the Wiehengebirge and the Weser Hills, is marked by a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I, standing on a hilltop and visible from far away. The colossal figure inside a stone canopy dominates the gap, and the view from the terrace is excellent.

   The ride from Minden is gentle and pleasant, along the river or over the hills. The road to the Porta passes through woods, with a few bends and a smooth surface. There are bathing places on the river and the lakes nearby, but the Weser itself is not clean enough for swimming and has strong currents. Pick a designated spot and read the signs. A stop at the river terrace with a coffee, watching barges and cyclists drift by, is a pleasant way to pass the time before moving on.

6. Bad Nenndorf return stop

   Bad Nenndorf is a spa town that never grew into a resort, and that suits it. It sits in the Schaumburg countryside west of Hanover, at the foot of the low wooded ridge of the Deister, and its trade is sulphurous water. Springs here were developed as a bath in the late eighteenth century under the rulers of Hesse-Kassel, and a park of old trees, colonnades and bathhouses survives from that period. The smell of the water is distinctive, and the baths are still used for health treatments, particularly for joint and skin complaints. The town is quiet, tidy and slightly formal.

   There is a darker chapter in its past. After the Second World War a British interrogation centre operated in the town, and the treatment of prisoners there caused a scandal back in Britain. It is a reminder that even peaceful spa towns have layers of history. Today the town is calm, and the surroundings, with farmland, small villages and castles such as the one at nearby Rodenberg, are good for relaxed riding.

   The road system around Bad Nenndorf is a web of secondary roads that run through the lowland between the Deister and the Weser hills. The surface is generally smooth, and bends are gentle, passing through villages with half-timbered houses and brick churches. Traffic is light outside commuter hours, and the main risk is agricultural machinery in the harvest season. To the south, the Deister ridge, about twenty kilometres long, offers forested roads and walking trails, while to the north the Steinhuder Meer, the largest lake in Lower Saxony, is a popular day out.

   For the rider, the town is a handy break. It has about ten thousand people, so fuel stations, bakeries and cafés are plentiful, and it is a good place for a coffee or a late breakfast before heading on. A walk through the spa gardens takes ten minutes and is an easy way to loosen up. Spring and early autumn are the best times for the ride, when the fields are green or golden and the light is soft. In summer, cafés set tables in the park, and in the evening the town falls quiet, so there is no need to hurry.

7. Back to Hannover west finish

   back to Hannover west closes the day.

Where this sits

Rides near here