Cycle Touring
A fully developed network of cycleways in the Mecklenburg Lake District offers a wide variety of opportunities to enjoy active leisure pursuits. No matter where you start, you can go on short cycle tours or make use of our well-signposted long-distance cycleways, such as the Mecklenburg Lakes Cycleway, the Hamburg-Ruegen Long-Distance Cycleway, the Berlin-Copenhagen Long-Distance Cycleway or the Elbe Cycleway, the most popular long-distance cycleway in Germany. Here, the motto is: Leave routine behind you, get on your saddle and out into the great outdoors! Not without reason, Mecklenburg is regarded as one of the most popular cycle touring regions in Germany. Along the way cafés and restaurants tempt the cyclists with delicacies, snacks and refreshing drinks.
Bike-riders bowl comfortably along the cycleways, in some places under the green canopy overarching tree-lined roads. Gnarled trees offer cool shade and in the fields golden crops sway in the gentle breeze. The setting sun bathes the bricks of an old manor house in a rosy glow and gradually the silhouette of a little town appears on the horizon. It’s not the speedometer that dictates but the desire for discovery, amazement and enjoyment.
Whether you are on a day’s outing, several days’ trekking or an organized tour with booked hotels and forwarded luggage cycle, tourists themselves decide the start and finish of their day’s activities. Many hotels, guesthouses, campsites and inns have adapted themselves to meet the wishes of cycling tourists. Apart from enjoying overnight stays, including for one night only, guests can lock up their bikes on the premises, dry their wet clothing and use collections of tools for any minor repairs that might be necessary, with a hearty breakfast often thrown in for good measure. Even if they have not brought their own bikes with them, guests can decide on the spot to set off on a cycle tour, for there are many cycle-hire firms ready to oblige.
The Ice-Age Route
The Ice Age brought about a special feature that makes this region unique in Germany: the large number of lakes. Nowhere else are there so many lakes, great and small, in such a small compass as in the Mecklenburg Lake District.
The Mecklenburg Ice-Age Route has a total length of 666 kilometres and offers not only recreation and a unique experience of the natural world but also a journey back into the distant past, the Ice Age. Erratic blocks at the roadside, beautiful landscape views, hilly areas and spacious plains, fields in many different hues and quiet tree-lined roads, interesting educational walks, and a great deal more all await you along the way.
Further information under: www.eiszeitroute.com (available in German only)
Ducal Residencies in Mecklenburg
(Route: Guestrow-Neukloster-Wismar-Schwerin-Ludwigslust-Friedrichsruhe-Guestrow)
The main residences of the Mecklenburg dukes, the castles in Schwerin, Guestrow and Ludwigslust seem to be something out of beautiful fairy tale. The towns which were seats of ducal government, the residencies, themselves offer a great number of cultural and historical sights but tourists find the ducal residences particularly impressive. For example, Guestrow Castle is regarded as one of the largest surviving Renaissance buildings. The ‘Neuschwanstein of the North’, Schwerin Castle, floats on an island on the edge of Lake Schwerin, and Ludwigslust Castle presents itself as Mecklenburg’s Versailles with a castle park, the whole of which is a conservation area because of its numerous water features and canals. Come and discover a piece of Mecklenburg’s rich ducal history!