“Dirty Menhirs. I curse them. I curse all the stones. “I curse the ice that brought them here.” 20 kilometers into the bike ride through the flowery plains of North East Germany, my 10-year-old daughter was bored.
We were on the “Raroute der Megalithkultur”, a week-long cycling route among the Neolithic tombs scattered between the medieval cities of Osnabruck and Oldenburg. For 380 kilometers, the Radroute zig-zags through dappled forests and hidden, untouched villages, along sparkling rivers, past tranquil bathing lakes and ancient heathlands. An old-fashioned, polluting, kid-friendly family holiday; an excellent combination of cardiovascular exercise and cultural education; but it goes over a lot of stones.
Thousands of megaliths (literally large stones) once stood in the Northern German countryside. They were brought here between 330,000 and 130,000 years ago and were dragged here (in what is now airborne) by glaciers from Sweden. For a short period of 700 years (3500-2800 BC), the Funnelbeaker people (so named for the funnel-shaped ceramics they made) built these in tombs like rustic versions of the Egyptian Pyramids.
No one knows why, for whom, or exactly how he did it. The results, still completed, resemble card tables for short-legged giants: a capstone resting on side pieces. They must have been almost covered with broadcloth. Despite using the most modern lifting equipment, modern builders are sometimes unable to return huge boulders to their original positions.
Now only about a hundred graves remain. Many areas were blown up and looted by farmers or (sometimes) priests who wanted building materials for their barns and churches. Beautiful, large farmhouses in this part of Lower Saxony often have menhir-shaped rock piles at the edges of their yards.
One of the most surprising is from the Kleinenkneter group (“Klein” means “small” in German): it is as tall as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The main capstone weighs 42 tons.
“That’s more than eight elephants,” my daughter whispered in awe as we cowered in the cramped burial chamber below.
Who was the bright spark who first suggested stacking elephant-sized lumps of granite on top of each other? Why did everyone accept this? Were these vanity projects run by neolithic Donald Trumps? Megaliths appear all over the world: piling up rocks is a common human impulse. The size of the stone, the impossibility of the task, the improbability of the outcome: these strange buildings represent the furthest reaches of human endurance and will; The point where the divine takes control.
“There’s also an ice problem,” I called to my daughter over the handlebars. “What we see here is the future as well as the past. “Unless we stop driving gas-guzzling SUVs and taking unnecessary plane trips, similar rocks will fall from the meltwater in the Arctic.”
“Please!” my daughter cried. “It’s not a thoughtful discussion about climate change either!” and screaming, he rushed towards grave number 28b.
The best way to do “Raroute der Megalithkultur” is not to do it. Don’t try to do the full 380km and instead take advantage of the fact that these tombs appear in clusters. Find a base and go on day trips, alternating burial mounds with swimming in lakes or napping in woodlands and playing tag in the heath. We were in the northern cluster so chose the excellent Gut Moorbeck, a rural spa B&B.
It is close to Dötlingen, considered by many to be the most beautiful village in Germany. An hour after arriving at Gut Moorbeck, after a swim, a sauna and a hard time in the massage chair, happiness returned. For 190 euros a night, four people can have a three-room apartment with a kitchen and a view of the mill pond, where there is a beaver named Justin.
The next morning at breakfast (€15 per person; served at a cake stand; enough to feed six people), we immediately started filling the rolls when the waiter left the room. The waiter smiled. He knew what we were after. It was our breakfast: If we wanted to stuff our delicious, fatty smoked trout and mackerel into bread rolls with strange combinations of German cheese and salami, cover them with paper napkins, rotting after a three-hour bike ride, and eat them on gravestones, it was our job.
One grave we saw was unexcavated. He was lying on the edge of some sun-dappled wood. Blackthorn pointed the way in bursts of white. The deer was flying among the trees. These small, less visited tombs (there are several along the route) convey a thrilling sense of intimacy and trust.
Here, a meter below your feet, at the edge of the tranquil forest, there may still be an amber necklace, ax heads, pottery shards: the remains of a people who worshiped the unknown. A microlight was shined down on us; We lifted our heads to look: this is how high the ice was 10,000 years ago: half a kilometer high. Enormous wind turbines are everywhere here; In that ice age, you had to climb six of them in a row to reach open air.
You can see what funerary treasures were collected by archaeologists and farmers in the museums in Oldenburg and Meppe. The rough structure of the pottery is exciting; mysterious signs are something you may have done too. Psychologically it feels closer to a seductive Greek amphora or a smooth Roman figurine. If you could reach through the cabinet glass, you could touch the hand that creates these rough, delicate objects from riverside clay and bonfire oven.
I have only two complaints about Radroute der Megalithinkulur: First, it’s impossible to get lost. We tried. We took wrong turns, left the entrance roads and entered through the exits, and when the guide clearly said “Go south” we headed north. None of them worked. Even in the middle of the deserted woodland, where no one was seen for two hours, cheerful signs featuring a green bicycle popped out of the trees, leading us back to the Radroute der Megalithkultur.
The exception is if you leave one set of tiles to move on to another. At this point Radroute designers fell asleep. Following the grave of Visbek’s Groom, a bridge over the highway is followed by a terrible straight road with trucks occasionally veering left to avoid you. Don’t do that. Take a short detour north to Ahlhorn or south to Visbek and take the train to Cloppenburg instead. And don’t forget to buy an ordinary ticket in addition to the Fahrrad ticket, otherwise, like my partner, you will spend your entire journey trying to convince the ticket controller that you are a bike.
An impressively fit person can cycle 100 km a day. A family with a 10-year-old child should aim for 25km, expect riots at 30km, and be happy with 20km. Pack plenty of water with your breakfast roguery, remember that more than four graves a day are adult pastime, and in no case start instructive musings about the wonders of history after the 15th kilometer: follow these three simple instructions and you will have a wonderful experience. time
“I’ve stopped cursing these ice chips and now I bless them,” my daughter said as we ate the last of our stale, crushed Gut Moorbeck sandwiches. She then paused and added: “… a little bit”.
Fundamentals
Alexander was a guest of Gut Moorbeck (0049 4433255; gut-moorbeck.de/), where family B&B rooms are €190 (£165) per night (two-night minimum stay) and single rooms are €115 (£100) per night. There is no minimum stay.
The map of the Megalithic Culture Cycling Route and more information can be accessed from all tourist information offices along the route. Bicycles and e-bikes can be rented from many places along the route.