Heidschnuckenweg Nordheide

A fitting opening stage: fifteen minutes out of the S-Bahn and the Fischbeker Heide opens up, one of the largest heathlands within Hamburg's city limits. The path swings up and down through the dry valley, sandy tracks with heather both sides and a view towards the Elbe. Then the woods take over: the Karlstein boulder in a dark beech forest, the light Doppelheide clearing, and finally the old oak villages of Langenrehm and Nenndorf, where time seems to slow. Buchholz awaits with a café terrace.

The day of heaven and hell, both real. First the Höllenschlucht, a dark incised dry valley that earned its name honestly; then the climb onto the Brunsberg, at 129 m one of the highest tops of the Nordheide, heather open all around and sheep grazing. Through the Büsenbachtal you follow one of the region's prettiest heath streams, crystal clear over sand, past the Pferdekopf rocks. In Handeloh the railway is close again: the Heidebahn stops here.

A day of two worlds. First the light 'primeval forest' stretch along the Seeve: marshy banks, fallen trees left where they lie, frogs jumping. Then the wide Weseler Heide, the path on a low ridge with views over waves of heather. In Wesel stands the Hexenhaus, one of the oldest farmhouses around. Undeloh itself is the heath village from the postcards: thatched houses around the nearly 800-year-old fieldstone church with its wooden bell tower. The Heide-ErlebnisZentrum explains how people and sheep shaped this whole landscape.

The flagship day of the Nordheide. Through the soft Radenbachtal to Wilsede, Germany's most famous heath village: car-free, horse carts on the lane, a museum farm from 1770. From Wilsede a short detour is worth it for the Totengrund, arguably the finest heath valley in the whole Lüneburger Heide, a bowl of flowering heather you enter from above. Then the Wilseder Berg: at 169 m the highest point of the North German plain, with a near-complete panorama over the heath. The descent to Niederhaverbeck through the Haverbeeke valley is the finale it deserves.

The quiet day. Out of the Haverbeeke valley onto the divide between Weser and Elbe - invisible, but the water around you now flows towards two seas. Through the Wümme headwaters, where a small lake glints between the reeds, and across the young Behringer Heide, only recently restored by felling trees. The Brunau follows you as a little river to the Brunausee, ringed by alders. Over the Borsteler Kuhlen, a rough patch of heath and juniper, you drop into Bispingen, where the Luhe babbles through the village.

The longest day of the Nordheide, and a watery one. From Bispingen along the little Luhe and its springs, then the secret Kreuzberg heath, a former military training ground the heath has reclaimed, where walkers are rare. Via the Böhmetal, with views from the high banks onto the twisting river, and the Grundlose Kuhle, a dark deep hollow in the forest, you reach Soltau. Look out for the fountains downtown: this 'Spielestadt' takes games seriously, with a games museum in the middle of town and a thermal bath for tired legs.