Breisgau & Alsace Wine Road

Beautiful scenery loved the old towns. The bikes were great

Amazing tour...Loved every minute of it! The staff was awesome. The bikes were great! The hotels were all very clean, with friendly staff and great breakfast. The route was beautiful. The towns were fairy tale dreamy. Did we get lost more than once? Yes of course we did, it's a given and expected when you're not familiar with the rout and towns, no matter how good the map and directions are. Having said that, getting lost was part of the charm of the trip, we got to explore more areas/places. Most trails and routs are very well marked and if you follow the "Bike Route" marks you will not get lost too much, maybe a turn here or there. We used Google map along with the paper map/directions provided. In some areas Google conflicted with the provided directions and that's how we got lost ... but it was fun exploring. If you're the daring type who considers every turn a new adventure you will have a blast. But if you're the type that everything has to be precise then you might get frustrated.

It was a fantastic way to experience several new cultures, communities and cities all while loving the interactive journey! We loved the challenge of finding our way and the delightful anticipation of our next destination and accommodation - which always truly splendid! Without speaking the language, ( German or French ) we met several wonderful nature loving and kind ppl who helped us when we seemed to veer off the route. We always got to the next destination and spent time exploring area and local cuisine. The best part of my experience was the sense of overwhelming ahh and appreciation I experienced when I had my 'around the corner 'experiences' - meaning that I suddenly came upon a fantastic site that I did not anticipate in magnitude or beauty and there I was, right there with it! Beautiful.
Thank you sincerely for the amazing trip! We loved every moment and strongly recommended to to all the soul inspired adventurers out there!! Xo

A great trip overall and a good value. I would've preferred an upcharge option for better hotels. The downside was the directions book, though well made and attractive, it was not helpful or practical. I found it was much easier to follow the road signs and ignore the book. Also, the book needs to point out attractions and diversions and points of interest. People are coming from all over the world to see this one particular area, it is so important to know what there is to explore in the countryside rather than just following the route.

Th best way to describe our bike tour is to say, it felt like we were living in our very own fairy tale.

This is a beautiful part of the world to see, and doing it via bike is excellent. We wanted to do it on a tandem, which the tour operator did not offer, so we rented one from a bike shop in Freiburg, and that worked out fine. The hotels were good, and so were the breakfast buffets that they offered. The distances cycled each day were good, which is to say short enough to allow stopping along the way as suited us, and arriving at the hotel in the evening with some time left to look around. We found part of our prescribed route to be flooded by the Rhine, so we had to divert to the roads through nearby German villages. This turned out to be fine, as a few miles on the Rhine levee is enough--after that, it gets a bit monotonous. The flower bedecked villages of Alsace are sensational. We ate wonderful French cuisine, and came home with a trove of beautiful pictures from this trip! On the negative side, the tour maps need to be improved. They are not detailed enough, far too often making it hard to know where the turn points of the route are. North is not always at the top on the maps, and there are no markings to indicate where north lies. The print is miniscule, so street names are almost impossible to read. The written directions accompanying the maps need improvement, too, due to occasional lapses of detail. The tour operator could solve these problems by offering handlebar mounted moving-map GPS rental. I believe people would be willing to pay for this additional aid. Overall, we are satisfied with this tour, and hope Pack and Pedal/Tripsite will work at refining their guidance to make it even better for those who take it later.

The routes and towns for this trip were perfectly selected. The hotels were charming and the staff was friendly and accommodating. The bikes were high quality and in nearly new condition. We found the written route instructions, written in English, were very thorough and detailed for each day of riding.. Yes, we did manage to get ourselves a little lost on a few occasions but in retrospect the fault was always ours for not following the instructions carefully. Because of the detailed road maps included it was always easy to get ourselves back on track. The suitcase transfer was flawless- we never felt rushed to get our bags ready in the morning and they were always waiting for us at our next hotel. Our group ranged from mid 50's to mid teens and all of us were equally captivated by the scenery and region's history. This was a great trip and we look forward to taking another vacation with Tripsite.

Overall a very enjoyable tour staying at good hotels and the bikes while a little heavy did the job well. The one area that needs improvement was the directions. For the first couple of days we were given detailed instructions in English but subsequently we were instructed to follow the route in the map book which was in German! As a consequence we had to work out our own route which we did using a large scale map and google maps. Also the suggestion was that we could have taken two possible routes on the first ride day but we only given instructions for one. Still a most enjoyable ride, fantastic scenary the weather was perfect.