I’ve just been cycling through the borderlands of Germany, Luxembourg and France with a group of Germans. We were on a boat/bike tour, based on a Dutch barge travelling along the Moselle, and it all went pretty well. Good company, plenty of interest, and weather was temperate, with not too much headwind. But there was one rather surreal moment.

By way of background, I need to explain that these borderlands are territories which belonged first to one nation, then to another; Trier, for example, was once French – and Metz was German. It was in this region that the French created the Maginot Line of fortifications after the First World War, to keep the Germans permanently at bay (fat help that was, the Germans just went round through Belgium).

Anyway one morning, just by the old fortifications of the Maginot Line, we were passing through a wooded watery wilderness in the river valley, which was something of a fisherman’s paradise. A place of backwaters and pools lined with ramshackle huts and temporary fishing camps, with men murmuring gently to each other over shared packs of Gauloises.

The Germans I was with had a habit of warning each other of hazards they encountered on the cycle path, usually with the word ‘Achtung’. I’d gone ahead to take pictures and had stopped by one of the backwaters, close to a group of fishermen. All of us looked up as one as a series of guttural ‘Achtungs’ approached through the trees, getting louder and louder as they came. For a moment there was a look of real apprehension on the face of the French, who suddenly looked as if they wished they had something more martial than just a fishing rod in their hands.

But then they visibly relaxed as the phalanx of cyclists appeared out of the gloom. The average age of the party was around 65, and their helmets were brightly coloured, not camouflaged. One of the fishermen grinned, and waved. ‘Achtung Bertie’ he called out as the cyclists swept past.

–        The temperature is ideal for cycling, and this is a nation that knows how to treat its cyclists well. Long distance cycle routes are well documented in the German Tourist Board’s ‘Discover Germany by Bike’ brochure, which unfortunately doesn’t have an online presence. Particularly recommended routes are the top half of the Danube, from Donaueschingen to Ulm, and the vineyard-lined Mosel between Bernkastel and Zell. But there’s lots more.

–        It’s also a good time for walking in the mountains, particularly at leaf-change time. There are great forest trails, for example, in the Pfälzer Wald in the Rheinland-Pfalz region (nearest airport Frankfurt) or in the Bayerischer Wald (nearest airport Nuremberg).

–        Germany’s vineyard regions will be celebrating the end of the season. There are wine festivals everywhere, including a big Grape Harvest Festival in Neustadt on the German Wine Road (nearest airport Frankfurt), at the beginning of October, when wine queens from various wine growing regions come together to elect the German Wine Queen

–        Museums and galleries, which have been ticking over through the summer, unveil their big autumn shows. In Berlin, for example, the Faces of the Renaissance exhibition at the Bode Museum features portraits by the likes of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli and Da Vinci. It runs until November, and is expected to attract big numbers.

–        It’s a good time to try a new city. Ryanair is launching a new route to Leipzig, particularly good for cutting edge arts and grand opera, on 3^rd November. Lufthansa has been operating an under-publicised route to Dresden for a while now, and the city is about to open a new and controversial military history museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind.  And the otherwise sedentary northern city of Bremen (also Ryanair) is about to reveal its lively side with the Freimarkt, a massive celebration which lasts for two weeks from mid-October, with parades, fairground and lots of open-air music.

–        Beer season is upon us. It is, of course, Oktoberfest time. But you don’t have to go to Munich. Stuttgart’s Cannstatter beer festival which starts at the end of September is meant to be the nation’s second largest. There are others, particularly the festival at Straubing and the Bergkirchweih at Erlangen, but they’ve already taken place, so for those you need to plan ahead for next year.

Surveys suggest that Germans love cycling along rivers best. If you want to follow in their footsteps, or rather tyre tracks, try the western part of the country where the Rhine, Moselle and smaller rivers such as Nahe or Saar offer a wide variety of cycle routes.

Germany as a whole is a country of cycling fanatics and cycling holidays have been on the up for years. Around 22 million overnights can be attributed to Germans spending their holidays on one of the country’s 200 long-distance cycle routes plus numerous short trails. Consequently, Germany is an extremely cycle-friendly destination with a widespread network of so-called Bett & Bike (bed and bike) hotels, with cycle lanes everywhere and no charge for bikes on a lot of the trains and public transport.

Along the rivers in the west

The landscape in the western part of Germany is dominated by a number of rivers so let’s start with the Rhine where the Rhein-Radweg (Rhine Route) follows the course of the river over 330 km from Neuburg in the south to Remagen in the north. On the way, this route includes the legendary stretch between Bingen and Koblenz with around 50 castles and the Loreley rock. It’s in Koblenz as well that the Rhine meets the Moselle at the Deutsches Eck. There are lots of vineyards and wine villages on the way, in addition to the enchanting riverside scenery.

The German stretch of the international Moselle cycle route (it travels through France and Luxembourg as well) is very popular with avid cyclists because of its idyllic setting. Some 250 km is through the Moselle wine-growing country with its typical steep vineyards and with lots of opportunities for stops in wine-making villages on the way. The trail will also bring you to Germany’s oldest town, Trier, with its famous Porta Nigra, a magnificent 2^nd century Roman city gate.

The Saar Radweg (Saar Route) explores a less well-known corner of Germany, in the very west, next to France and in Germany’s smallest Federal State, the Saarland. The trail is nice and flat and not too long at 98 km, starting in Sarreguemines (France) and ending in Konz, not far from Trier. Saarbrücken, the Saarland’s capital, is located right on the river Saar, and is not particularly spectacular but with a nice relaxed vibe. The former ironworks in Völklingen are an impressive testament to the region’s industrial and steel making culture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. By contrast, the Saar Bow where Saar and Moselle meet is the major natural sight of the region.

And anyone combining a love for cycling with a liking for good food should definitely try this route, since the Saarland is one of Germany’s gourmet corners, which might have something to do with its proximity to France. There are lots of restaurants, including some with Michelin stars. And since you’re cycling, there’s no need to worry about putting on the calories either.

Northern Germany is ideal cycling country. This landscape doesn’t detain many passing motorists, being too subtle to grab their attention from a speeding car and too widely-spread for walking, but it has big skies, no hills, immaculate cycle-only routes, and it rarely gets too hot. The routes here are well marked (many are cycle-only), there are frequent hire places, and the local train network is well used to people with bicycles.

Here, you’ll find yourself purring through a landscape that smells of wet hay and cow parsley, with foxglove and campion glowing by the side of drainage ditches. On a bicycle you can creep up on wildlife, and you’ll pass through fields full of lapwings, with nearby bushes exploding with starlings. There’ll be geese grazing in a distant meadow, and a curlew will flee away, shrieking, over the floodplains.

Of course there are some notable long distance routes, notably the Weser-Harz-Heide, starting down near Göttingen, running around the Harz Mountains and finishing on the Lüneburg Heath just south of Hamburg. Then there’s the Weser route, which starts in the same place but sticks to the river, running through Bremen and ultimately into the North Sea by Bremerhaven. And the Elbe route, which hugs the river bank all the way from Dresden in the east up to Hamburg, and is regularly voted one of the top long distance rides in Germany. All these have online route maps, cycle hire companies, good signage, cycle-friendly accommodation, and you can expect to travel along proper cycle-only paths for much of the way.

In Germany, bicycles have more traffic rights than in the UK

But northern Germany is probably best for family cycling, for dipping in and out of local places, and particularly recommended for this is the area between Bremen and Hamburg, including the Teufelsmoor – devil’s moor – where apple-cheeked farmers in baggy blue are usually out and about giving the shaggy flatlands a trim. A key attraction here is the small town of Worpswede, an island that rises 52 metres above the boggy flats. Its sense of grim isolation under moody skies has attracted a long history of artists like Udo Peters, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Maryan Zurek, who started a tradition of a kind of post-impressionist, pre-raphaelite Bloomsbury-in-the-bog. Today the village is full of galleries, studios, smart hotels and restaurants.

Worpswede can get clogged up with weekend traffic, although on a bicycle you can usually weave your way around anything. In fact, in Germany, bicycles have many more traffic rights than in the UK, something you need to be aware of as a driver. As a cyclist you need to be law-abiding, too: the pavements are carefully demarcated between cyclists and pedestrians, and you’re likely to be scolded if you stray!

Getting There: International airports are at Hanover, Bremen and Hamburg. International rail connections are via Cologne from Brussels (Thalys), which connect with the Eurostar from London. See our Travel page for airlines, rail and tour operators. There’s also a special listing of cycle operators.

Staying There: Our recommended hotels are here for Niedersachsen, including Worpswede properties, and here for Bremen. There is also an extensive listing of rural properties and ‘hay hotels’ here. 

Niedersachsen Tourist Board’s recommended cycling routes.

It may end up as the longest river in continental Europe, but the Danube starts small at a spring in the heart of the small Black Forest town of Donaueschingen, and doesn’t become navigable until the city of Ulm, a distance of roughly 200km. Accordingly this first stretch of stripling waterway does not figure widely in tour operator brochures, which tend to focus on big river cruises, and yet it is one of the prettiest waterside routes in Germany, ideal for cycling.

Donaueschingen is a handsome little place, and its celebrated Danube (Donau) spring bubbles out of the ground between the town’s palace and its brewery. These days it has been railed in to make a little pool surrounded with balustrades which tourists treat as a wishing well, throwing coins into the water.

After just 20 km it vanishes completely

Shadowed by the cycle route which goes all the way to Budapest, the river sets off full of hope, initially through parkland and water meadows, but then after just 20 km it vanishes completely near the village of Immendingen into an underground system of watercourses, leaving behind a weedy, puddled riverbed which only really flows during seasons of heavy rain and melting snow.

Fortunately this weedy bed is slowly refilled by tributaries, and then for the next 30 kilometres the re-born river wanders mazily through lovely pastoral landscape of fruit orchards and cattle grazing, burrowing through a limestone gorge in the southernmost skirts of the Swabian Alb. A lot of the riverbank land hereabouts is owned by the very prosperous Benedictine abbey at Beuron, with its fabulously decorated baroque church, and abbey produce – particularly meat – on sale in abbey shops.

Beuron is the first of several major abbeys that line the river, and the next town, Sigmaringen, is the setting for its first major castle, a Hohenzollern property stuck dramatically up on a riverside rock, where the Nazi-controlled French Vichy government was incarcerated during the Second World War.

At the next, very pretty, town of Riedlingen, whose main square is lined with ancient, slightly wonky, half-timbered and gabled houses, there’s a choice of routes: sticking to the river for the straight run into Ulm, or diverting up the Ach valley to the resort town of Blaubeuren, where the river Blau emerges dramatically from a giant hole in the ground.

The Blau meets the Danube at Ulm, the first big city on the Danube, whose cathedral has the tallest church spire in Europe at 161 metres. From Ulm downriver there are more castles, monasteries and notable cities, but now that the river is navigable, mainstream tourism kicks in. Upstream of Ulm a river-following cyclist is in his or her own world; below Ulm, he or she will begin to meet up with others, and then from Passau, to blend with the crowds.

Plenty of organisations (see our Tour Operator pages) offer packages along the Danube Cyclepath (Donau Radweg), but route finding is a doddle, and there are plenty of bike-friendly guest houses, so it is just as easy to organise it yourself. A handy guide is The Danube Cycleway, published by Cicerone.

Andrew Eames’s book about travelling the Danube, Blue River Black Sea, is available from Amazon.