By Ted Davis
Stereotypes inevitably determine that the autobahn experience be cited as the definitive driving experience in Germany. But at the end of the day, there is more satisfaction in exiting the superslab and charting your course past the farms, castles and villages of the German countryside.
There is no shortage of this scenery in Deutschland, but you might not know that if your driving vacation is framed around the typical city-focused route. Germany’s cities — Munich, Heidelberg, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, etc. — are the country’s major tourism drawing cards.
Connecting them in the most direct way are Germany’s autobahns, those famous multi-lane highways that are largely free of speed limits. Limits are imposed in obvious areas — i.e., near cities or road works — but roughly half of the autobahn network has no speed limits at all, and the average pace in these stretches is about 150 kilometres an hour.
Many of the ’bahns are concentrated in the commercial/industrial corridor that runs north-south from Dortmund and Essen in the north, down through Dusseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt, further south to Stuttgart and southwest to Munich. Some of the heaviest traffic in Europe rolls slowly past these places during peak workday hours.
But north of the corridor, the traffic volumes drop dramatically, while the autobahn stays wide and fast. Early on a bright Sunday morning, the three lanes of the A1 southbound from Osnabruck beckon with a wide-open invitation to press harder on the accelerator.
It may not be a C-Class, A6, 3 Series or Cayman, but the game new Ford Focus EcoBoost is capable of holding its own in the fast lane of the A1 — with all of 1.6 litres and a turbocharger at work. In sixth gear, it settles into a busy but unstressed 4,000-plus rpm in sixth gear as it approaches 200 km/h. The motor music stays uptempo until heavier traffic on the approach to Dortmund starts to force braking and downshifts. Oh, well …
The postcard area I had just departed, a short distance north, is easy to access quickly but a world away from the bustle of the Dusseldorf corridor. This is the so-called land of the water castles, in the region of North Rhine Westphalia, and it is mostly flat or gently rolling land, carpeted by fertile farm fields. It is Germany’s biggest agriculture region.
Off the autobahn, storybook rural homes and villages pass by with regularity, and the road choices are plentiful for anyone with a map and a sense of direction — or a GPS. The water castles, named for their moats, dot the countryside. For instance, the massive Nordkirchen Palace has a virtual lake for its moat, and the rambling grounds and forest outside the water perimeter define a quiet park. The castle has been dubbed the Versailles of Westphalia, and makes for an impressive stop.
But the history of this region was not only written in the castles but in the small cities that bred the religious, political and business leaders of the day. They came from places such as Osnabruck and Munster, and the region of the water castles is also dubbed Munsterland.
Munster is a wonderfully compact and comfortable city that is just far enough off the main tourism path to keep the crowds down, yet still historic and attractive.
Its original centre is distinguished by its bumpy cobblestone roads, which twist and amble uphill to the dominant position held by the darkly historic St. Lamberti church. Steps from there is the Town Hall, where the Peace of Westphalia treaty was signed in 1648 (ending the Thirty Years war), and which is open to visitors.
Just 60 km to the northeast is the city of Osnabruck, which also played a key role in the Westphalia treaty but was otherwise a religious rival to Munster. In Osnabruck, the maze of medieval lanes converge on a cobblestone main square that is bordered at one end by the city’s Gothic city hall and massive St. Marien church adjacent to it.
Surrounding the square are the tall, narrow merchant buildings that were once damaged by Second World War bombs, but have since been rebuilt in the half-timbered style of their predecessors — which were originally constructed in the 14th and 15th century heyday of the Hanseatic League. These rise behind the outdoor patios that rim the square, and the whole area bustles with shoppers, strollers and socializers.
The drive between Munster and Osnabruck can be accomplished with a relatively quick blast on the A37 autobahn, but a much more scenic way to get it done is on the rural highways that connect the two. Drivers can, for instance, jump onto the 64 road west to Telgte, then the 51 northwest through Glandorf and Bad Iburg before reaching Osnabruck.
Yes, it will take longer, especially as the rural landscape keeps imposing photo stops. But it’s worth the delay.
