Kiel · Holstein Switzerland Lakes and Coffee Roads

A 157 km loop from Preetz old-road

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Why this ride

Green lakes, rolling bends and proper northern touring rhythm. The best part sits around Preetz old-road gate, Plön castle lake, Eutin lake road, while Bad Malente coffee stop keeps the day practical instead of turning it into a fuel or food hunt. Check the OSM map, Google preview and GPX checkpoint order before departure; they use the same waypoint sequence. Ride it with legal pull-offs, patience through villages and enough daylight to stop without rushing.

Roadbook

1. Preetz old-road gate start · 22 m

   Preetz sits on a narrow neck of land between two lakes, the Postsee and the Lanker See, in the part of Schleswig-Holstein that the Germans call Holsteinische Schweiz. Holstein Switzerland is a generous name for a landscape whose highest points barely scratch a hundred metres, but the glaciers of the last ice age did leave behind something lovely here: a jumble of lakes, ridges, beech woods and little roads that follow every fold. Preetz is the gateway, a small town of about sixteen thousand people with a proper market square and a calm, practical air.

   The town grew around a Benedictine convent founded in the thirteenth century, and the monastery church by the lake is still the quiet heart of the place. The community later became a noble ladies' foundation, which is the sort of odd survival you find a lot in northern Germany. It is worth ten minutes if the church is open. The surrounding streets are all red brick, low roofs and bicycles and on a warm day you are more likely to notice the ice cream queue by the water than any monument.

   For a rider the appeal of this start is what lies in every direction. The lanes run gently up and down over glacial hills, with bends that are mostly tight and tidy rather than fast, and the surface is generally good, though farm tractors leave mud and crop remnants around harvest time. Stay alert at the many junctions where hedges block the view. Weekends in summer bring cyclists and cars looking for the lakes, so early starts pay off, and the best light comes in the evening when the fields turn gold and the water goes still. Spring, with rapeseed blooming bright yellow, is when the area looks most like a postcard, although the wind off the Baltic can still be cold.

   Fuel is no problem: Preetz is large enough for stations and supermarkets, and nearby Raisdorf adds more choices on the road toward Kiel. Cafes around the market square serve coffee and cake in the German manner, which suits a lazy morning before you head out. The Baltic is only about twenty kilometres north, and you will smell it in the air when the breeze turns, a salty, seaweedy note that always means the day is going to be open and bright.

2. Plön castle lake sight · 28 m

   Plön castle stands on a hill above the lake and the town, a pale, solid, rather formal building that looks as though it was designed to impress someone, which it was. Duke Joachim Ernst of Schleswig-Holstein-Plön had it built in the early seventeenth century, and the dukes of Plön lived here until their line ran out in the eighteenth century, when the Danish crown took over. Later it became a Prussian military school, and today it is a private boarding school, so you can look at the exterior and the terraced gardens but not walk through the rooms.

   What matters most to a rider is the setting. The castle sits on a ridge between two lakes, the Great Lake of Plön and the smaller Lake of Plön, and the view from its edge covers islands, reed beds and forested shores. The town's streets slope down towards the water, and the old centre has some good half-timbered houses and a pleasant market square. Plön is a town of about thirteen thousand, which means it has fuel, supermarkets and several cafés.

   The roads around here are some of the best in Holstein, with long, curving lanes that follow the lake shores and climb the low glacial hills. The hills, left by the Ice Age, are gentle but numerous, so the riding has a rolling, rhythmic quality, with the occasional sharp bend at the bottom of a dip. In summer, the lakes fill with sailboats and swimmers, and the roads fill with cyclists and day-trippers, so the early morning and the evening are best. Spring brings fields of rape and blossoming orchards.

   Ascheberg and Bösdorf, both just five kilometres away, are small lakeside villages with swimming spots and small restaurants serving fresh fish. Try the local smoked fish if you see it. Pull in at the car park by the lake for a few minutes, and the view will explain why people have been building castles here for four hundred years. Stay for the sunset if you can, because the lake turns copper.

3. Eutin lake road scenic · 28 m

   Eutin is a small town that carries itself like a larger one, thanks to a history of bishops and dukes. For centuries it was the seat of the prince-bishops of Lübeck, who made the place their country residence, and later it belonged to the Dukes of Oldenburg. Their legacy is a moated castle beside the Großer Eutiner See, with a landscaped park around it, and a town centre of cobbled lanes, a market square and brick gabled houses. The composer Carl Maria von Weber was born here in 1786, and every summer an opera festival is staged on the lake in his honour, with the castle gardens as a backdrop.

   The lake road is the point. It runs through the region known as Holsteinische Schweiz, or Holstein Switzerland, a name that makes locals smile a little, since the highest point, the Bungsberg, reaches just over a hundred and sixty metres. But what the hills lack in height they make up for in variety. This is glacial landscape, shaped by ice-age moraines that left behind a jumble of small hills, hollows, lakes and boggy valleys. The roads wind between them, through beech woods, past reed-fringed water and along tree-lined avenues, with views of the lakes opening between the trunks. For northern Germany, it is rich, rolling riding, with short, tight curves in the woods and gentle grades.

   The surface is mostly good, but many of the lanes are narrow and tree-shaded, so patches of moss, damp leaves and fallen twigs can catch you out after rain. Cyclists and walkers share the roads in summer, particularly around Eutin and Malente, and the lake is a popular place for sailing and swimming. Early mornings are best, when the water is still and the mist drifts across, and the autumn colours in the beech woods are superb.

   Eutin is known as the Rose Town, because of its gardens, and it has a population of around seventeen thousand, so fuel, bakeries and cafes are no trouble. A slice of cake in the market square, with a view of the lake, is the traditional way to spend an hour. The coast of the Baltic, with its seaside resorts, is only a short ride east, so a lake-and-sea day is easy to put together.

4. Bad Malente coffee stop food · 32 m

   Malente is a spa town that sits between two lakes, and it has the quiet manners of a place that has been taking care of visitors since the nineteenth century. The Dieksee lies to the west and the Kellersee to the east, and between them runs a canal and a path, lined with chestnut trees and villas, with boat landings and cafes. The old spa quarter, Gremsmühlen, has a park, a spa house and a fine collection of wooden villas with turrets and balconies.

   The big attraction is the Five Lakes Tour, a boat trip that links the lakes of the Holstein Switzerland by canals and short channels, with a launch that runs in summer between Malente and Plön or Eutin. The trip lasts a couple of hours, and passes through reeds, beech woods and small hills, with swans and herons. It is slow and peaceful, a good way to spend an afternoon when the road is damp.

   For riders, the town offers an easy coffee stop. There are bakeries and cafes along the main street, with cakes and coffee, and fuel stations on the road to Eutin. The town has about ten thousand people, and everything you need is within a short walk or ride. Eutin, a few kilometres away, is bigger and has more services.

   The roads around Malente are among the most pleasant in the north, with smooth surfaces, gentle bends and a succession of lakes and woods. The hills are small, but they give a surprising sense of variety after the flat coast. The weather is mild, but showers can arrive quickly. In summer, the lakes are warm enough for swimming, and the beaches are busy at weekends. Come in the morning, when the water is still, and the first light picks out the reeds. A slice of plum cake and a pot of coffee at one of the lakeside cafes costs little and takes the edge off any amount of damp.

5. Selent waterline stop · 30 m

   Selent is a village of barely thirteen hundred people at the northern tip of its lake, and the lake is the reason to come. The Selenter See is the second largest in Schleswig-Holstein after the Great Lake of Plön, a long, clear, slightly wild sheet of water fringed with reeds and woods, and the road runs along its shore for much of the way. The place sits at thirty metres above sea level, on a low glacial ridge, and the lake lies just below it.

   The village has a manor house and a church, and the old estate shaped the surrounding landscape as a patchwork of fields, hedgerows and carefully managed woods. Many such manors, owned by the Holstein nobility, still dominate the villages and farmland of this part of the country, and a few have been turned into hotels or cultural centres. The ground beneath it all is the work of the Ice Age, rolling and lumpy, with hollows that hold lakes and ponds like loose change.

   The riding here is gentle and enjoyable. Lanes wind between hedges and fields, dip into hollows, and rise again over low moraine ridges, with views of the water opening and closing between the trees. Surfaces are generally good, though farm traffic leaves dirt on the road, and in summer the lake draws swimmers and cyclists. Come on a weekday morning, when the water is still and the light slants over the reeds.

   For fuel, Selent is too small to count on a station, and the nearest larger town is Lütjenburg, about ten kilometres to the north, which also has supermarkets, bakeries and cafés. If you are heading to the Baltic coast, it lies just beyond. Selent itself has a bakery or two and perhaps an ice-cream shop in summer. Pull in at the lakeside and have a sandwich, because the water is better company than most roadside tables. A quiet corner of Holstein, quietly good.

6. Back to Preetz old-road finish · 22 m

   The route ends here after 157 km.

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