Germany Bike + Boat Tour Reviews — 421 to 450 of 1340

Vineyards and villages

Review of local cycling etiquette would have been helpful

Everything about this trip was enjoyable. Excellent barge and crew. Friendly group of riders. Beautiful biking routes each day.

So many memorable moments. Beautiful ship, quite luxurious, wonderful food, spectacular towns and villages along the Danube and Vienna! What a place. I loved the classical concert in L’Orangerie at Schönbrunn Castle and the scenery between Krems and Melk. I had to pinch myself several times as I was cycling through Austria along the Danube. I had done the tulip tour on the Iris the previous week which was great too but harder cycling and not such good weather. I also didn’t use an e-bike in the Netherlands and had some pretty strong winds and long days cycling. So the Swiss Crown tour was a more relaxed week and totally different. The e-bike made it pretty easy too and the self guided tours made it easy to stop at more places along the way.
I know the Swiss Crown tour director, Jurgens, aka Ding Dong!, had to deal with some staffing issues during my week on board but he made everything so easy in spite of working lots of extra hours. There was a much bigger group of German speaking passengers than English speaking and I felt that they got more attention than we did at times and so I’d suggest being a little more outgoing towards the non German passengers. But overall the whole thing lived up to and beyond my expectations. A trip of a lifetime!

Cycling along the River, crossing on the small ferries, stopping for coffee, kuchens or farmhouse meals was such fun.
We thoroughly enjoyed, probably more than the city, the cycling route through the wine valley and small villages. Absolutely breathtaking and the history! Small cobblestone streets that you push your bike through whilst checking out the local offerings. Spectacular.

The boat was comfy and well appointed, the beds were very comfortable, the biking along the river was fabulous with knowledgeable and friendly guides. I also enjoyed the sumptuous dinners each night. One of the best parts of this trip was getting to know our fellow travelers and make new friends.

The cycling, food, and service by ship’s staff were all great! We had the good fortune to meet some very interesting and fun people from Canada and Scotland, attended a couple very good concerts in both Vienna and Prague, and basically saw a part of Europe we never thought we’d see. Budapest, Vienna, Prague were all very interesting, and beautiful cities, and our guide, Thomas, made it all even better! Juergen, the cruise director, was very helpful, as well, finding us when we lost our group at one point and getting us back to the ship. Between Thomas and Juergen, we were able to sample a lot of good food while on the bike rides, and they provided great company at dinner, as well. I believe Thomas ate with us nearly every evening.

A couple notes: 1) I brought pick-pocket proof pants, as I’d heard that we needed to be careful. I didn’t really need them. Probably a better purchase if you’re visiting Paris and/or Barcelona. 2). The 3rd level rooms had balconies, where the 2nd level rooms do not. The room for the balcony is taken from the indoor room space, so you actually pay more for a balcony, but lose space in the room. We had a 2nd level room and the other 2 couples we traveled with both had balconies. They were envious of our extra room. Be sure to take along a travel clothes line to dry your clothes.

We also found the e-bikes were well worth the extra $$. Both my wife and trained using standard bikes, and physically were in decent shape for the bike rides, which were all pretty easy, fun rides. We found the e-bikes let us relax and enjoy the trip a bit more than we might have on regular bikes.
The ship, the Swiss Crown, was in excellent condition. The food was very, very good, and seemed to get better each day, as did the bike rides. The table service on the ship was excellent and the servers were all very personable, helpful, and friendly. One member of our group was vegan, btw, and the ship did a great job of accommodating him.

In all, we had a great trip and would do it again! Thanks to all for a wonderful time!

This was our first Bike & Barge, but it won't be our last! The whole trip was fabulous, the biking, the crew, the food, the other passengers and Tripsite for organizing it all!

Bicycling through the beautiful vineyards and the opportunity to visit picturesque towns.

This was my fourth bike/barge tour with Tripsite, and it was just as amazing as the other trips. Loved every moment. The ship and crew were simply outstanding. The only disappointment is that the itinerary said we would be in Metz for the evening, to even include a walking tour. We were greatly looking forward to it. However, we left Metz within an hour of boarding. It was a great topic of conversation among many passengers, who were also disappointed. So I’m not sure why we even started in Metz, to only leave right away and travel quite a distance to our first port. Other than that, it was as wonderful as each of my other Trip Site vacations.

The itinerary was terrific. We had fabulous guides who gave us lots of information about the sites we were visiting. The boat was very comfortable and the food was great. We had just 20 participants and everyone was very interesting and friendly. Can't wait for our next trip!

I worked with TripSite to plan this trip for 20 friends and family and they were fantastic to work with: flexible, friendly and professional. And the trip costs half of similar trips offered by US based bike tour operators. The Iris was a superb boat in great condition and the crew were amazing, with a special shout-out to the fantastic food! The riding was hard to believe: miles and miles of flat, scenic, history drenched wine country. Every days ride was enjoyable and had nice prizes and surprises along the way. Some of my group decided to stay on board for one or more days and got to relax and watch the castles go by, read a book, drink some great local white wine, and chat with the friendly crew. This particular tour: the Mosel between Cochem and Metz, was referred to me by a good friend who has done a dozen packaged bike tours and said this was his favorite. Now it's ours!

The biking.

The bikes were a problem everyday- not well maintained or just end of season but not good
The barge was very warm- esp with comforters- suggest availability of a sheet for these conditions. A soap dish is needed in the shower, the hair dryer was very inadequate. Need to have some sort of wax paper or plastic bag for the sandwiches- wrapping in napkins does not work. The barge should offer/highlight local wines!!! The whole point of this trip is particular.
Our guides Heddy and intern Micah were fabulous.

Reik welcoming and friendly nature & Omar's cooking.

I learned never to be on the last trip of the season, the exterior of the boat was kinda 'sad' looking.

Guides should actually know where they are going and put safety of riders at the top of their concern. Paul was so careless he was dangerous.

I don't think I would've gone on this trip if I would've known that I wasn't free to ride/stop when I wanted to or even provided the route information. I've been on several trips with Backroads and this did not measure up.

Great scenery, great chef on the barge, nice boat, and great guides! Overall a great experience. However if I must find something that needs a bit of upgrading, it’s the bikes. They were getting pretty tired and needing tune ups. Some had bald tires and most lacked correct air pressure in the tires, on previous Boat Bike trips the bikes were much better maintained. It was the end of the season and the bikes had gone through a lot over the year was the reasoning, but I paid so I expect good bikes regardless of the time of year.

This trip was amazing with great scenery and a great crew and staff who were so friendly and fun. The towns we rode through were small but very interesting and loaded with history. The barge was perfect and similar to the different barge we were on with 12 cabins which we think is a great size. Our group of 11 met 8 amazing people from Canada and 2 others from the states who just made the trip so much fun with a lot of laughter. Time to start planning the trip for next year.

This was my first bike and barge trip and it was wonderful! I plan to do more biking and cruising! It was fun traveling with 14 friends.

I particularly enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the river and the little villages we stopped in.

Our week was the last week of the season and the ferry across the river to Luxembourg was closed. The guide saw how disappointed we were and offered us to bike an additional 14 km to be able to get to that country which was an unanimous decision by our group.

Traveling on the IRIS was nice. Highlights: Bike ride from the extinct volcano down to the Mosel was a great 40 mile ride (almost all down hill). The wine tasting excursion was set up by our guide Paul. Quite different than others I have been to. It was an intimate meeting with the owner of the winery that had been in his family since the 1600s. It rained (really just a mist) during 2 of our rides but with rain gear, it didn’t effect us.

Give me a call if you would like to hear some minor suggestions for improvement.

It doesn’t get any better than this !
What a fabulous time. After two years of rescheduling due to Covid we were so excited to take our trip aboard the Zwaan to cycle along the Mosel and Saar Rivers. Totally worth the wait.
The crew aboard the Zwaan was exceptionally helpful and friendly. The rooms comfortable and clean , and always a hot shower. We enjoyed having drinks on the deck watching the sunsets. Our meals were very good and we had fun trying to guess the ingredients and urge our chef to share his recipe. The energy expended from the staff to ensure we we happy and comfortable was commendable.
The cycling path was way going and we were pleased we chose to take our trip in early October because it was the time for harvesting grapes and the process was fascinating. Our weather held out albeit a bit cool at times but it’s better than biking in the heat. The towns we visited along the way were charming. We would have welcomed more time in Trier. The cycle paths were well maintained and mostly paved and off any busy roads with few exceptions.
Certainly would recommend this trip. Suitable for all ages, even for one turning 75 years old !

Riding the trails through the beautiful forests!

Biking with family, romantic views from the river, the friendliness of the boat puppy and crew, wonderful dinner , and the stadt tours

The friends we made during the trip were the highest point of the tour. We biked and hung out for drinks at the boat deck every night. The crew eas efficient, gentle and friendly. The food was exceptional. The cabins and showers were rather small.

The Patria is a beautiful boat with highly motivated and cheerful staff so that every day is a party. The tour guide was very helpful and focused on making your holiday a successful one. The route is picturesque and beautiful, beautiful villages like Saarburg, Traben Trarbach, Beilstein, Trier. Places where you can drink your tea and eat the traditional cakes and have a beautiful view over the Mosel, those are the most precious moments. We have now done this tour for the second time, every day has his nice spots to see en enjoy of the river. We are already thinking about doing it again when the autumn colors are there. This is one of our favorite tours.

The visit to Burg Eltz was fantastic. If I could suggest, it is worth having it be the focus of an entire day, as going and coming back involves a relatively strenuous walk, as well as a ride.

This September my friend and I thoroughly enjoyed taking this tour for the second time (first April 2015). After taking 7 Tripsite tours this still remains our favorite due to the consistantly beautiful countrysides, lovely interesting villages, quality bike paths, and fantastic experience aboard the Patria. Not only are the port towns excellent, there are many wonderful places to investigate and enjoy along the ride every single day. We like it so much we plan to do it again in the future a bit later in fall to catch some color on route. Having taken both directions now our personal preference is Koblenz to Saarburg. We enjoy the northern villages with a hike to Berg Eltz most and feel the current routes are set up to enjoy this most fully coming from that direction. If your concern is avoiding inclines the south to north direction is your best bet since that is actually downriver. The southern villages are still outstanding, you just see more Roman influence mixed with the Bavarian half timber.

Great tour and fantastic boat. The Merlijn had it all - amazing food, friendly professional crew, gorgeous interior design, solid internet, spotlessly clean, and great communication. Several passengers had special diet requests that were thoughtfully accommodated. There are many small special touches - personal cabin intro, laundry folded neatly on bed, flavored cold water after biking, different table decor each night, espresso and small snacks available at all hours.

Our guide Lia was super energetic, friendly, knowledgeable and catered to the group's "wants". The first day fell into the moderate category - challenging surfaces (cobblestones, tank tracks, grassy sandy trails) and a long grunt up a hill in a field. Each day got easier with the last being an easy flat paved surface. Lia provided lots of information about the area's history, especially around WWII and its impact preunification. We visited churches, a castle, an artist's studio, and a concentration camp (briefly).

Tips: brush up on WWII era history before trip, reserve ebike early (6 onboard), ok to pack light as laundry is provided (for a fee).

I've been spoiled by their outstanding quality and don't want to book anywhere else. I'm looking forward to my next trip on Merlijn next summer!

Going to Poland. This trip was too rural and remote. Very few stops and few points of interest. Mainly dirt paths or cobblestone paths that were very difficult to ride a bike on. The farm fields we drove our bikes through were awful, some were full of holes and quite dangerous. I do not recommend this trip for those who have back and neck problems or those who never have rode a mountain bike.