Overall:
This was a newly-developed tour in 2017 and, in its English-language variant, still shows some signs of that, particularly the route documentation. Nevertheless, it is still hugely enjoyable. A marked number of buildings of interest to tourists were obscured to some degree, either as a consequence of renovation work being carried out, or because of performance stages, ticket offices, food stalls and the like erected supposedly to improve the tourist experience during the Luther centennial year.

Highlights
With Berlin, Leipzig and Wittenberg on the list of cities, there are going to be a lot of highlights, so I won’t try to list them. Some of the minor towns visited, both overnight stops and during the course of the cycling, had much to recommend them.

The cycle route, also, had much of interest: woods, meadows, lakes and rivers; even beaches. Flowers and wildlife; sighting a deer running across your path can make your day. This tour had them all.

Quibbles

• Too many tourists in the cities!
• Venues spoiled by “tourist amenities”.
• Venues not at their best because of renovation work.

Regrets:

• Not visiting Sansoucci Palace in Potsdam. Were I doing the tour again, I would modify the GPS track for day 2 to provide a route more tailored to my needs: pretty much as I, in fact, did in leaving Berlin, but once over Glienecke Bridge, ignore the suggested route, heading directly to Schloss Cecilienhof instead, then on to Sansoucci before coming back on to the standard route for the last few kilometres.
• Similarly, close to Juterbog, there’s a place called Zinna Monastery, which I might have been able to visit with a bit of planning beforehand.

Photographs
While in Wittenberg, I became very annoyed at the number of sites spoiled by what I considered to be inappropriate constructions erected for the anniversary year, and even started taking photographs to illustrate just how bad this was. However, on returning home, I have relented (viewers should be relieved, for the back of Castle Church in Wittenberg is very unsightly, I can tell you!).

So, my first photograph is of Wittenberg, taken on the main square, outside the Town Hall.

The second photograph is from Halle (the optional extra day), again in the main square.

Date of my Tour: 2017-08-05/12 (7 nights / 8 days — included the Halle option)

Options Chosen

• 8-day tour; ie, with the extra day for Leipzig to Halle. Recommended, both for the cycle route from Leipzig to Halle and for Halle itself. An alternative, if you don’t want more cycling, would be to book an extra night in Leipzig and take the train to Halle and back.
• Standard Accommodation (“Category B”).
• Half-Board. On a couple of evenings (at Schwielowsee and Bad Duben), there are few, if any, alternative venues for evening meals, so even if you do not book the half-board option you will probably end up eating at the standard place. Although most venues restricted the menu choices available, I was content with what was on offer.

Materials Supplied
A few weeks prior to the tour, I received documents from Rad & Reisen:

• Receipts.
• List of Hotels.
• The Route Book, which included details about meeting at one of the hotels for a briefing meeting and for hand-over of the bicycle and other equipment. Looking through it, I could see it was what I consider “draft” quality, not a finished piece of work, with multiple printing mishaps (one bit of printing overwriting another), monochrome maps (difficult to pick anything out) and pictures and very little description of the route. I mentioned this to Rad & Reisen.
• Perhaps as a consequence of my comments about the Route Book, Rad & Reisen sent an e-mail containing GPS tracks for each day’s ride. I was also told, on arrival at the hotel in Berlin, I would receive a colour version of the Route Book, albeit in German.

The following were in a pack of materials (all in German) supplied on arrival at the hotel in Berlin:

• Voucher for entry to The Luther Effect exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau just off Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
• Voucher for a guided tour of Wittenberg (90 minutes), starting at the Tourist Information Centre. It turned out the guided tours are in German only (they are at 10:00, 14:00 and 19:00), but the staff at the Information Centre will give you the option for a self-guided audio tour instead, which frees you up from any particular start time. An identity card or EUR 50 has to be given as deposit for safe return of the audio device and it must be returned by 18:00, when the Information Centre closes.
• Voucher for entry to Luther 1517 Wittenberg 360° at the Asisi Panorama (the opposite end of town from the Tourist Information Centre).
• A Deutsche Bahn rail ticket from Halle to Leipzig (for return travel using the S-Bahn, on which bicycles are permitted, from Halle, if the extra day is booked).
• The German version of the Route Book. This was noticeably thicker than the English version, with maps and pictures in colour. And, descriptions of route variations.
• Tags for attachment to luggage to be conveyed from hotel-to-hotel. Each piece of luggage required two tags, one with the person’s name and number of items of luggage, the other with the hotels assigned. The system worked flawlessly, my luggage often having been taken to my room before I’d even checked in.

Bike
Because of my height, I was issued with a gents frame bike rather than a step-through frame. From the first test ride, I was impressed with how smooth it felt. I made no adjustments to the bike for ergonomics, not even to the saddle height. The bike had standard V-brakes, 24-speed (3x8) derailleur gears and bottle-dynamo-operated lights (which I never used). We were supplied with a puncture repair kit, two Ortlieb pannier bags and an Ortlieb handlebar bag, giving more than enough space for all the stuff I wanted to carry when cycling. We were given a water bottle (to keep), but although the bike had two sets of bosses for bottle cages, none was fixed (I attached my own). The bike performed faultlessly throughout the tour; it was noticeably more dusty at the end than it had been when handed-out!

Transfers:
I flew to and from Berlin Tegel airport (TXL). At Tegel airport, I took the Berlin City Transport bus TXL to Alexanderplatz (the end of its route), then transferred to bus 200 (which came in right behind the TXL bus, so no delay) to the Am Friedrichshain stop, about 200 metres before the Victor’s Residenz Hotel on the same road. A single ticket (EUR 2.80) covers both buses, but I bought a ticket for a day’s travel (EUR 7.00), as I wanted to use the public transport system to visit The Luther Effect exhibition near Potsdamer Platz for which a voucher had been provided.

For the return from Leipzig, the hotel is just across the road from the Hauptbahnhof (no taxi required), so I took a Deutsche Bahn train direct to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, then the TXL bus from across the road outside the station forecourt (so-called “Europlatz”) to the airport (cost EUR 2.80).

A Strange Thing on Arrival in Berlin
At Tegel Airport, Border Control kiosks are located immediately after coming off the plane. The officer examining my passport seemed to be taking an extraordinary length of time and, after some minutes, he said to me “Is there a problem with your passport?” After another few minutes, I was told to follow him and was taken to one of the other kiosks where, apparently, the officer spoke better English. I was now asked if I’d lost an old passport and found it again.

Now the penny dropped! My previous passport, the one I’d most recently used when visiting Germany, had been stolen (in Prague, in August 2016) and I’d had it cancelled and had applied for a new one, the one I was now presenting to the German authorities. The Germans had a record of that old passport having been used to enter (and leave) Germany a few times the previous year, but now here I was turning up with a different passport, before the one they knew about had expired.

So this told me a number of things:

• The Germans keep a record of people and passports entering or leaving the country.
• They refer to and cross-check with their records when someone enters.
• They appear to have no means of checking if a passport for which they have a previous record is still valid (relying solely on the expiry date on the passport itself).
• Neither do they have any means of checking if a (new) passport presented to them is valid (other than the information on the passport itself).
• At Berlin Tegel Airport, they do not seem to be able to process the biometric data stored in the passport.
• That the Border Control officers in Berlin are making decisions based on incomplete data (a previous record of my old passport, but no up-to-date information about the current status of that passport — “Cancelled”).
• In other words, there doesn’t seem to be any mechanism by which the authorities of one country can send an electronic enquiry to the passport authority of another country in order to ascertain passport validity.
• That, despite my old passport being cancelled and no longer valid for travel, the German authorities’ record of that passport caused them to treat my new, valid, passport with suspicion.
• That, despite my old passport being cancelled and no longer valid for travel, the German authorities’ record of that passport may cause them to treat it as a valid document were it to be presented to them (perhaps with a different picture attached).

Obviously, I was allowed through, but I was left with the distinct impression that Passport “Control” is a complete misnomer, a guessing game based on incomplete information, where the different countries’ governments don’t appear to be joined-up or co-operating with one another. I found it difficult to believe that some baddie, presenting my stolen passport at Berlin Tegel, would have been stopped (everything depends on whether the German authorities had a scan of the photo on my old passport) yet that, conversely, I had being questioned. Further, the EU, for all its talk of the free movement of people, has had goodness knows how many years to put in place the underpinning arrangements to make that work properly, but has completely failed to do so. I was appalled.

On the tour
There were five people booked on the tour: a Swiss couple, a Dutch couple and myself (the only non-German speaker). As we were all in Victor’s Residenz Hotel on the first night (in fact, no one had booked hotel upgrades, so we were in the same hotels every night), the briefing and hand-over of bikes was held here on the morning of Day 2. The Dutch couple (Jan and Tini) had, like me, booked the half-board meal option, so I tended to see more of them. I was the only one to have booked the extra day Leipzig–Halle option (Jan and Tini told me their tour company had not even provided the option), though both the others had booked at least one extra day in Leipzig.

Navigating the Daily Routes
I had three different aids for navigation:

• The Route Book.
• The GPS tracks. Prior to my departure, I modified these so they started and ended at the hotels at which I would be staying (as shown on the list supplied to me). This worked well, with the day’s track always ending outside my hotel. On the rides, it became apparent there are some problems with the GPS tracks (examination in detail on my return home has confirmed this) and they definitely do not adhere exactly to the route described in the Route Book.
• Green arrow stickers which Die Landpartie has attached to signposts along the route. This is well and good as far as it goes, but sometimes they are obscured by vegetation and, in other cases (such as in woods), there are no convenient signpost on which to stick them.

With the combination of GPS track, Route Book and green Landpartie stickers attached to signpost along the route, it’s possible to get along without too much difficulty, although at various points when they diverge, you have to choose which you’re going to follow. Sooner or later, they come back together again.

Day 1: Berlin.
As a voucher had been supplied for The Luther Effect exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, I headed off to this as soon as possible after checking in to the hotel in Berlin. Very conveniently, the exhibition centre, close to Potsdamer Platz, is on that same bus route, number 200, as I had used to reach the hotel. So travel to Potsdamer Platz was easy, and the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition centre is a few minutes walk from there. The free audio guide is essential to getting the most out of this exhibition. There are five main sections: around the central area, the reformation itself; then side rooms exploring its effects, up to the present, in four different countries: Sweden, USA, Tanzania and Korea. An art installation in the centre of the space, using a series of bars changing from vertical to horizontal planes, into which you are intended to walk, is supposed to portray the difference between Protestant and Catholic thinking. The artist’s ideas, on the audio guide, struck me as rather better than the realisation. The two hours I had available for the exhibition were nothing like enough time to do it justice.

Hotel: Victor’s Residenz Hotel, Berlin
On arrival, I was offered a welcome drink by receptionist Janine Franck, who later very helpfully performed translation duties explaining the written German materials in the package which had been left for me. (A star for Janine, please!) My accommodation was rather more extravagent than usual, since I was assigned a suite: on opening the door to the room, I discovered an ante-room with doors to two other rooms and to the bathroom. Both the bedroom and lounge were equipped with TVs. Pity I was staying only one night!

English Language TV: BBC World — channel 0036
CNBC Europe — channel 0037
Euronews — channel 0038

Evening Meal: Buffet in the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). Choices of soup, breads, cold meat cuts, cheeses, a couple of hot courses (fish and chicken casserole), fruit and cakes.

Breakfast: In the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). Everything you’d expect, including cooked food.

Day 2: Berlin to Schwielowsee (Petzow / Geltow).
After a briefing session from the Die Landpartie representative (Rad Und Reisen’s agent for the tour), we were on our bikes, heading for Alexanderplatz from where we could pick up the Berlin-Leipzig cycle path. The ensuing hours were like a march through history, along Unter den Linden (a lot of restoration work going on), Brandenburger Tor, a diversion to the Reichstag, past the Soviet Victory monument, then Siegessaule, on into Charlottenburg, another diversion, this time to the stadium of the notorious Olympic Games of 1936, before turning off to the left, entering a wooded area for the first time, then a fairly long stretch until more history, with crossing the Glienecke Bridge (“of Spies”) and into Potsdam with another diversion, round its parks and to Schloss Cecilienhof (being restored), venue of the 1945 Potsdam Conference between Churchill, Stalin and Truman. An additional venue would have been Schloss Sanssouci, but, in a long day, there was not time for me. (I think a more efficient route might have made it possible.) I understand the Swiss couple on the tour took a train from Berlin to Potsdam, giving them more time here, but at the expense of missing the sights of Berlin. Choices have to be made!

Hotel: Landhaus Geliti, Schwielowsee
A very nice country hotel, located “in the middle of nowhere”, some way short of the end of the day’s route, so you need keep alert not to overshoot. There is, however, a signpost to the hotel from the cycle path (but the very next pole has a green Landpartie sticker on it instructing you to continue straight ahead — for the rest of the day’s route); if you do overshoot and have to come back, a much bigger sign to the hotel is visible in this direction.

Bike Parking: A locked cycle shed in the car park at the front of the hotel. Key from reception.

English Language TV: BBC World — channel 0092

Evening Meal: Set menu in the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). There are no other restaurants in the immediate vicinity, so even if you did not book the half-board option, you will probably end up taking your evening meal here.

Breakfast: In the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). Everything you’d expect, including cooked food.

Day 3: Petzow / Geltow to Juterbog
In the Route Book, this day was marked as “Asparagus Fields and Sales of Indulgences”; both aspects completely passed me by.

In the briefing, we had been advised on this day to visit the disused Tuberculosis Clinic just outside Beelitz. The English-language route instructions direct you into the centre of Beelitz; completely wrong for the Clinic. The GPS track pointed the opposite way (the Route Book and GPS track completely differ from this point until Treunbrietzen), but then split into two, confusing both me and my GPS device. Fortunately, I spotted the Swiss couple up ahead, and followed them for a few hundred metres, and was quite surprised to find where they had led me. In the evening, they told me they had spent some hours at the clinic, paying for admission to the viewing platform and guided tour, and found the whole thing absolutely fascinating. I stayed about an hour, and then returned to my bike and confused GPS track.

I decided to return along the path taken, this time heading towards Beelitz, the GPS still completely confused. Then it indicated to go right, and, because this was marked as a cycle track, I took it. A few minutes later, the GPS was happy again, showing me to be on track and heading in the right direction. I was happy, too, for it was a lovely wooded area, on a good surface. My only concern now was the GPS was showing there was still almost 50 km to cover and it was already 13:00, so I could see a late finish was on the cards. I need not have worried, however; on fast paths, the next 20 km flashed by.

The next attraction, Treunbrietzen, is reached through quite a long on-road section, but with very light traffic. I liked the town and took some time to explore along its main street, before continuing, on a side-street, on the route. Shortly, another divergence between the Route Book and the GPS track became apparent. The Route Book instructs you to continue to a roundabout and take the third exit, Federal Highway B102, all the way to Juterbog. Before I’d reached any roundabout, though, the GPS indicated to turn off left. I decided to stick with the GPS, but regretted that a few minutes later when it led on a bone-shaking tractor-track through a field (I was too annoyed to think to look if was asparagus). (Back at home, I’ve discovered the official cycle path offers a third way, but the provided GPS track did not take this.) At the end of the field, the route joined a minor road and, eventually, this arrived at the B102. Rather dull, but fast, cycling alongside this road (though it did offer the chance to stop for an ice cream), so perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that the GPS track again indicated a diversion before rejoining the road on the outskirts of Juterbog. Then, the written instructions give a diversion, taking a “scenic route” to the market square, whereas the GPS track here stays on the B102, providing an imposing entrance to the town, rather fitting for your first view (more appropriate than “creeping in through the back door” I feel).

Juterbog: a worthy overnight stop!

Hotel: Hotel “Zum Goldenen Stern”, Juterbog
A somewhat quirky, family-owned hotel. Great location on the town square, adjacent to the Rathaus. Reception is located on the first floor (that’s not the ground floor!) and has specific opening hours (my arrival coincided with the start of the afternoon session, at 16:00). Room decor is a little idiosyncratic: I think mine was trying to reflect the mood of an African sunset, as depicted in a painting on the wall, with extensive use of oranges.

Bike Parking: Lock-up garage at the back of the hotel (key from Reception).

English Language TV: None.

Evening Meal: The hotel’s own restaurant was closed, so evening meals were offered at Schmied, two doors along the road (outdoor seating available), where a choice of a couple of options from their regular menu were offered.

Breakfast: In the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). Being a smaller hotel, there were fewer options than in the city hotels (Berlin, Wittenberg, Leipzig), notably the absence of cooked items, apart from boiled eggs.

Day 4: Juterbog to Wittenberg
Two other cyclists were preparing to leave in the morning; they were to become familiar figures on the remainder of the journey to Leipzig, having booked a different company’s Berlin–Leipzig tour, using a substantially different route out of Berlin and overnight stopping-off point.

Both the GPS track and the written instructions concurred on taking the scenic route out of town, the wooded part of Wilhelm-Kempf-Weg being very pretty, leading to the B102, then turning off along the route I’d taken in to town the previous day, past some dilapidated factory buildings and through a wood to a railway crossing.

From here onwards we were covering new ground and, on seeing one of the green Die Landpartie direction stickers, it occurred to me how easily someone on yesterday’s ride, coming in to Juterbog, could mistakenly start following today’s direction stickers, leaving Juterbog. Anyway, shortly after came the first disagreement between stickers/Boute Book and GPS track. I stuck with the GPS track and discovered it was the long way round, for the two new cyclists, whom I’d overtaken earlier, were now in front again. The same happened again a few minutes later, just before reaching a windmill (one of several seen during the week).

At this point, I realised there were only 30 km left of the day’s ride and the time was just 10:30; it would be possible to be in Wittenberg in time for the 14:00 guided tour (one of the vouchers provided). I made that my intention.

The main town of interest on the route is Zahna, where I took a few photographs and where the track passes through a car park. By this point, the written instructions had petered-out to “follow the Berlin-Leipzig cycle path to Wittenberg”, so the GPS track was useful, but soon deviated from the green Landpartie stickers and cycle path. This time, I followed the stickers and I’m glad I did, for they set me up nicely to spot a deer on the track which, surprisingly, hadn’t noticed me. And they also took me through a dark woods, which I enjoyed, whereas the GPS track went round it.

I arrived in Wittenberg with plenty of time in hand. There’s much to see in town, but I became disenchanted with some of the main sites, which I think had been spoiled by constructions I assume to have been erected for the sake of the Luther centennial. Good burghers of Wittenberg, please note: performance stages, fencing, ticket kiosks, food huts, temporary toilets and their ilk, erected close to historic buildings, do not enhance this visitor’s experience! Hopefully, in future years, visitors will be able to enjoy these places without this cultural philistinism.

Later, I went to the Asisi Panorama, for the Luther 1517 Wittenberg 360° exhibition. Essentially, it’s a large cylindrical building the inside walls of which have been painted to depict what Wittenberg might have looked like in 1517, populated by numerous figures engaged in all kinds of activities. There’s a lot of detail. Coloured lights are used to effect the changing conditions during the course of a full day and night, with sound effects to reinforce this, attention moving from one scene to another. In the middle of the building, there’s a viewing platform, so you can move up to various levels to get a better view of different parts. On my voucher, it said the exhibition closed at 18:00, but after I came out, I saw a sign indicating it’s open until 20:00 on at least some days of the week. Worth visiting.

Hotel: Luther-Hotel Wittenberg
Bike Parking: Underground garage beneath the hotel, using areas off the car lanes. There were a large number of bikes here!

English Language TV: CNN — channel 0056
BBC World — channel 0057
Al Jazeera English — 0058

Evening Meal: Set menu in the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available).

Breakfast: In the hotel’s own restaurant (outdoor seating available). Everything you’d expect, including cooked food.

Day 5: Wittenberg to Bad Duben
Before leaving Wittenberg, I had another quick foray round the sites before the waves of tourists started arriving in their vast numbers. On leaving town, the route passes across the railway track and ring road and shortly after crosses the River Elbe. The primary interest of the route was nature rather than the towns visited, including nice sandy beaches on Bergwitzsee, where I encountered the two extra cyclists, who told me they’d had a dip and invited me to do the same. I spared them the spectacle.

So it was that I arrived at Bad Duben quite early, initially going to the wrong hotel. The GPS showed me I had “arrived” and there I was with the entrance to a hotel at my right hand side, so I went in, not realising the hotel I wanted was in full view across the other side of the road.

Bad Duben’s a small town, not unattractive. It has the misfortune of being on main roads to other places, so waves of traffic and heavy vehicles were passing through, up until around 17:30, when everything goes quiet. The people of Bad Duben must have the smartest hair in all Germany and be the best-travelled, judging from the number of hairdressers and travel agents in town. There’s a small castle, Burg Duben (being restored), in the park across the road from the hotel (the Tourist Information Centre is at the entrance to the park); Napoleon is reported to have occupied the castle, hoping to gain a decisive victory over Blucher, which the cunning Prussian denied him; a notable development in European history.

Hotel: Burgschanke & Herberge Goldener Lowe, Bad Duben
Bike Parking: A locked room in a building at the back of the hotel. Key from Reception.

English Language TV: BBC World — channel 0037

Evening Meal: In the hotel’s Biergarten Restaurant, which appears to be a popular venue with locals. The full menu was offered, with no restrictions.

Breakfast: In the hotel’s breakfast room (which is different from the Biergarten Restaurant). Given the excellent evening meal, breakfast was a little disappointing, with a less extensive range of choices than at other hotels during the week.

Day 6: Bad Duben to Leipzig
At 09:00 and 18:00, models of two goats appear from the clock tower at the Rathaus in Bad Duben and proceed to butt each other. I went to observe this spectacle and found our two other cyclists there for the same purpose. “See you on the ride,” I said as we returned to our respective hotels (theirs the one over the road), but, in fact, this turned out to be our last encounter, so not a proper Auf Wiedersehn.

We start by crossing the river (Mulde I think it is) and very soon I saw the Dutch couple, Jan and Tini, up ahead. I ended up cycling the entire journey with them. A couple of highlights were the sighting of a deer running in the field to our right, across the track in front of us and into the field the other side. Then, some way further on, fruit trees lining the track (not in an orchard), plums and then pears. We stopped for a sampling session.

Shortly before reaching Leipzig, we had been advised of a change of route, caused by construction work at a railway crossing. We negotiated this without too much difficulty and were then into Leipzig, passing in front of the Hauptbahnhof. My GPS track took us to right outside the hotel.

Hotel: Royal Hotel International
Bike Parking: “Fahrradraum” in the basement of the hotel. You have to wheel your bike through reception and take the lift down to the Bicycle Room.).

English Language TV: BBC World — set channel 0159 on the digital set-top box; set the TV to HDMI input.

Evening Meal: The hotel does not do evening meals, so these are provided at Valentino, an Italian restaurant, some way along Richard Wagner Strasse. Four different menu options are available, from which a complete menu has to be chosen (no mixing and matching between menus).

Breakfast: In the hotel’s own restaurant on the first floor of the hotel (NB this is not the ground floor!)

Day 7: Leipzig to Halle and return by S-Bahn train
Weatherwise, this was the worst day of the tour, starting grey and turning into drizzle for a time about half-way to Halle. It was a pity, for the route was attractive, cycling on a dyke(?) with a river on the left hand side and a profusion of wild flowers. Fortunately, this did not last long and I reached Halle in the dry. The Tourist Information Centre is just off the main square (where you’ll also find a statue of a rather-portly Handel [spelt with an e], so Bach [Leipzig] and Handel [Halle] in one tour!), in an unmissable red-coloured building. From here, I obtained a map showing the main attractions and I spent a couple of hours walking round, taking in a good number of them.

The weather took another turn for the worse and I decided I’d given Halle a reasonable innings. The Route Book describes two ways to reach the railway station: a walking route (direct) and a cycling route (indirect). I noticed some of the attractions I hadn’t visited were on the walking route, so I used this. Use of the S-Bahn to reach Leipzig was recommended because cycles are conveyed free. At around 17:00 on a Friday, there were a number of other bikes on the train, but the many bikes were disentangled in time to get off!

Day 8: Departure from Leipzig
My flight wasn’t until the evening, so I had a few hours in Leipzig, revisiting some places and finding a few new ones.