Kiel · Probstei, Hohwacht and Eutin Flow

A good northern day: fields, bay air, lake roads and no motorway boredom.

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Why this ride

A good northern day: fields, bay air, lake roads and no motorway boredom. The best part sits around Probstei villages, Hohwacht bay, Lütjenburg reset, while the most useful town 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. Probstei villages scenic · 20 m

   The name comes from the provost of the convent at Preetz, who once held the land and drew rent from its farmers. The villages are strung along the lanes at the edge of the fields, with brick farmhouses, village churches and long avenues of trees.

   It is an easy, relaxed place to ride, with flat roads, light traffic and wide views over the fields. The bends are gentle, and the surface is generally good, with a few rough patches on the back roads. The wind blows hard on the open land, so be ready for it, and the sky seems huge. In summer, the fields are full of ripening barley and wheat, and the air smells of hay and the sea. There is little shade, so carry water.

   The coast is not far, and the beaches at Wendtorf and Laboe are a favourite with the locals. Next to it lies U-995, a Second World War submarine that visitors can walk through, an eerie reminder of how cramped life was on board. The Kieler Woche, the great sailing festival in June, fills the fjord with white sails and draws crowds from all over Europe.

   Fuel is available at Laboe and in the larger towns around Kiel, and there are also several cafes and restaurants on the coast. Many serve fresh fish, including smoked eel and herring, and the local speciality of Kieler Sprotten, small smoked sprats. In the evening the sea turns silver and the ships glide into the fjord with their lights on. It is a pleasant, uncomplicated place to wind down at the end of a day.

2. Hohwacht bay swim · 10 m

   Hohwacht Bay is a wide curve of the Baltic coast in eastern Holstein, with a long, sandy beach, low dunes and shallow, gentle water that warms quickly in summer. The land here is flat and green, with the sea on one side and the rolling hills of Holstein Switzerland on the other, and the light has that clear, northern quality that painters love.

   For swimmers, this is one of the more pleasant stretches of the German Baltic. The beach is sandy and the water is shallow, so it warms up in July and August, and families flock to it. There are cafes and ice-cream stands, and in the evening the sun sinks into the sea, turning the sky orange and pink. Out of season the beach is almost empty, and the gulls and wind are the only company. The air carries the smell of salt and seaweed, and the waves leave long lines of amber-coloured weed.

   The roads around the bay are quiet and pleasant, running between fields of rapeseed and wheat, with old brick farms and small villages. Bends are gentle, and the surface is generally good, with the occasional rough patch. In summer the traffic near the beaches can be heavy, with cars and caravans queuing for the car parks, so go early or late. A cycle path follows the coast, and cyclists are common, so give them room.

   Lütjenburg, six kilometres away, has fuel, a supermarket and a pleasant old centre with a market square. Close by is Panker, a manor estate with a distinctive yellow house, known for its horses and a hill with a viewing tower called Hessenstein, from where you can see the Baltic and the hills. The country is full of manor houses, many of them still working farms, and the local cheese and smoked fish are excellent. Fuel is easy to find in Lütjenburg, and the best advice is to bring a towel and an appetite.

3. Lütjenburg reset scenic · 35 m

   Lütjenburg is a small, tidy market town on the Baltic side of Schleswig-Holstein, a few kilometres from the sea in a rolling country of fields, lakes and low hills. People here call the region Holstein Switzerland, a joke that is half serious, because by the flat standards of northern Germany the landscape counts as dramatic, with hills of a hundred metres or so and lakes in the hollows. About five and a half thousand people live in the town, and it has the feel of a place that has been a local centre for a long time.

   The market square, with its church and its stepped gables, is the heart of town, and on market days it fills with stalls selling vegetables, fish, flowers and cheese. A hill above the town, the Hohe Lütjenburg, offers a view over the roofs and the bay, and a short drive takes you to the beaches at Hohwacht, where the Baltic is shallow, grey-blue and quiet. The coast here is gentle, with dunes, reed beds and long beaches, and in summer it fills with holidaymakers from Hamburg and Kiel.

   The surrounding country is manor-house land, with big estates, brick farm buildings and long avenues of beech and lime trees, a legacy of the Danish and German nobility who owned most of the land until the twentieth century. Several of these estates, with their moats and parks, can be seen from the road.

   The riding is easy and relaxed. Narrow lanes follow ridges and valleys, bend through villages and cross low rises, with wide views over the fields, and traffic is light outside the summer weekends. The wind from the sea is the main hazard, and on exposed stretches, it can push a bike around. Fuel is available in town, along with bakeries, cafes and fish shops, where you can get a smoked fish roll, a local favourite. At about thirty-five metres above sea level, the town is not high, but the surroundings roll gently. Spring and early summer are lovely, with yellow rapeseed fields, and autumn brings misty mornings and golden light.

4. Eutin lake scenic · 28 m

   Eutin is a town with a lake, a castle and a composer. The lake, the Großer Eutiner See, is a broad stretch of water at the heart of the Holstein Switzerland region, with wooded shores and a slender island, and the castle stands at its edge, a moated palace of the old prince-bishops of Lübeck, surrounded by a landscape park. The composer is Carl Maria von Weber, who was born in the town in 1786, and the summer opera festival here is held in his honour on an open-air stage by the lake.

   The town, with about seventeen thousand people, is known as the rose town, for the flowers that fill the gardens and the market square. It has a pleasant old centre of low brick houses, cafes and shops, and a lakeside promenade. Fuel and groceries are plentiful, and the cafes serve the cake and coffee that are essential to north German life. Malente, with its lakes and spa gardens, is a few kilometres away.

   The Holstein Switzerland is a hilly region of glacial landscapes, left by the last ice age, with lakes, beech woods and rolling fields, and it is among the best riding in the north. The roads are smooth, with gentle curves and short climbs, and the lakes appear at every turn. The surface is generally excellent, but the verges are lined with trees, so look out for shadows and patches of damp in the morning. Cyclists are everywhere in summer, so share the road.

   The lake is a good place to take a break, with benches and a path along the shore, and boat trips in summer. The light in the evening is soft and golden, and swans glide on the water. Spring and autumn bring colour and quiet, while summer can be busy at weekends. Come on a weekday, and you may have the shore to yourself.

5. Back to Probstei villages finish · 20 m

   Back at Probstei villages. That is the ride.

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