Bike Tour Reviews — 1141 to 1170 of 1693

May 2019 - Review of the Salzburg & Bavaria Bike Tour, or "Mozartradweg". With a really varied cycling terrain, but with the Alps on constant display, this was an extraordinary choice for a bike tour. It was a joy to cycle this part of Europe. Highlights for me were the towns of Wasserburg, Berchtesgaden, Kufstein, and Salzburg. The landscapes connecting these towns were just breathtaking. My only complaint would be that due the amount of time required on the bike, there was little time explore many of the sights along the way, such as the islands in the Chiemsee, Seeon Abbey, the Eagle's Nest, etc. I really enjoyed my few extra days in Salzburg and would have added another day or two in Berchtesgaden if I were to do it again. For the practical points, the bike was good, as were the hotels. And while the path itself was signposted extensively, (as "mozartradweg"), I would not want to rely on the maps and directions provided. I paid the thirty euros for the GPS tracks for the Komoot app (which easily transferred to my Garmin). I would really highly recommend this, and Komoot app turned out to be great. I chose early May with the intent of experiencing the Alpine meadows and chestnut trees in full bloom. And while they were, there was near constant rain, and even one day that it snowed. I was lucky I had packed thermal gear, but even so, the weather wore me down and I cheated and took the train the last day (which was easy to do, and the bike was free). I would go later in the Springtime or in the summer were I to do it again.

We toured Barolo wine country. This is a prosperous part of Italy but the young women wore tattered blue jeans. We had great food and wine. The countryside is beautiful. There were some parts of the route that were on roads with big trucks and others on gravel or dirt (in our case muddy with rain) road. There were long uphill climbs with 16% grade, thank goodness for the excellent bicycles. It was a great experience that I recommend. We have done multiple trips with Tripsite and all have been wonderful.

My wife and I really enjoyed this bike tour; everything from the hotel in Porto, to the gps guide, luggage transfer and our final transfer to Lisbon was excellent. Carlos briefed us about the tour, introduced us to our bikes and our gps "tour guide"; actually made us do it before he left us. Since we had an extra day in Porto we practiced using the gps by doing its walking tour of Porto. Appreciate the Emergancy phone provided, even tho we did not use it. Weather was perfect. The only downside is the tour goes thru areas that were burned a couple years ago; very sad; made us really appreciate the beautiful unburned forests we rode thru. The tour booklet provided a good overview of each day's ride; there are some sections where finding food & water at mid day may be a challenge. A good tour

My wife and I have done several of these bike tours. They've all been amazing, Umbria, Sicily, Dali Country, etc. Mallorca was the most relaxing. You are on beautiful country roads nearly the entire time. Coming from California where you are constantly dealing with cars, this was a huge treat. The weather in May was perfect. The inns and food were spectacular as well. A truly great trip. Sean

The sheer amount of interesting things to see and do along our route, so much so that we did a lot of hiking in wonderful scenic countryside. My tip for others is that this is a cycle route that you must do! We plan to revisit it again in a couple of years. It was that good.

Most memorable parts: The guided cycle tour around Prague and then the Elbe Sandstone Mountain Range and the region around the border between the state of Saxony and the North Bohemian region.

Best Parts? The spring landscape & scenery. The mix of sights and history along the route.

Prague guide was fantastic, was very interesting and could not do enough for us

We took the self-guided "Sport" tour from Passau to Vienna, starting on 2 April.

A. Here are our suggestions for anyone looking at the tour options for Passau to Vienna.
1. Don’t ever sign up for the “Sport” version of the tour because it requires 50+ miles every day, and leaves no time for exploring or resting.
2. If you are doing the self-guided trail, do yourself a favor and get the e-bikes. The bikes given to us were really inadequate for the distances.
3. Consider doing the bike & boat option rather than biking the whole way. The reasons? If on a boat, you won’t have to pack and unpack every day; You won’t have to search for the hotel in the evening, and you can look forward to relaxing on a boat every night. Another big plus is that from the shoreline, you often cannot get a good perspective on the scenery. When the cliffs rise overhead and you are below, you can’t see them at all. And you may be able to avoid some of the on-road biking that we encountered.

B. Here are the things we liked about the Tripsite planning and execution:
1. They booked all of the hotels and moved our bags every day. The hotel choices were excellent and the hotel owners all served good meals and provided nice rooms.
2. There were no surprise expenses.
3. Tripsite pretty much delivered what they promised.

C. Here are the things we did not like about the Tripsite planning and execution:
1. The materials and the bikes were delivered on the first morning of the trip. The trail book has lots of detail and routes on both sides of the river. Receiving the book as you are departing for a 350 mile journey is ridiculous. The company who publishes the maps (esterbauer.com) probably could provide a PDF far in advance.
2. The trail map was outdated. We encountered sections, starting on day 1, where the trail signs said the trail ended. Several times we were traveling on busy highways with no bike lane, no shoulder, and with semi-trucks screaming past us. On one section, we had to peddle for several km on soft sand past the trail closed signs, because the alternative was riding on an autobahn-type highway.
3. We purchased the Komoot iPhone app with the trail, thinking it would help us. Sometimes it did help. Other times, it tried to route us onto busy roads. It does not work well for this kind of trip, because the hotels are not on the route. We used Komoot to help get us from the trail to the hotels and Google Maps worked at least as well. I think Komoot is a good product, but not implemented well for this application.
4. During our entire trip, we encountered very strong headwinds that made progress painful. We expected that 21-speed bikes would be ok, but the gearless bikes performed very much like 7-speed bikes and is the source of complaints from others too. We concur. We should have ordered E-bikes.
5. On the second day, we called and asked to replace our bikes with e-bikes. Rad-Reisen called back and essentially said it would not be convenient for them to make the change. Trying to ride 50 miles into a strong headwind with the equivalent of a 7-speed bike is not good. I was sometimes limited to 11-14 km/hr (7-9 mph) because of the wind.
6. We signed up for a bike-tour of Vienna and stayed an extra day in Vienna. That day there were 25,000 runners in the Vienna Marathon, so we asked to cancel the tour. We found that the tour had already been cancelled for us, but we did not know it.  SHOW MORE 

Just completed this tour - May, 2019. We were a group of 12 (Canadians) and were looking for a reasonably easy bike journey. The terrain was - as advertised - very flat and never strayed very far from the beautiful shorelines of Portugal. (one significant hill - character builder) Early to mid-May worked well and we could only imagine how crowded the beaches and communities would be if the trip were taken in high summer months. Many of the small towns we passed through were almost dormant - very little life or activity, and many shops seemed closed . If you take the trip - be aware of Sunday closings and fewer selections of restaurants in Portugal. Sergio, the organizer and supporter, was helpful in every way with the organization of the trip, gps devices and bikes. He was available at all times if needed. We did not require that sort of support - and we were non-guided. The actual surfaces of land that we biked upon were variable - ranging from excellent bike paths to rural, remote dirt roads - but all very passable.
Not enough can be said about the hospitality and consideration of the Portuguese people we encountered. Bike travel is not as abundant in Portugal, and not as much a part of the culture, as elsewhere in Europe - but the gentle ways of the Portuguese are a pleasure to encounter. lb

This was tour #6 for me and it was completely different than my former experiences. My previous tours were full of tourist sights and charming villages with little shops, coffee/tea/bakery cafes, and restaurants (with restrooms) to stop at along the way during the day and actual bicycle paths. Krakow to Warsaw (Warka) Poland tour was very unique. Positives: Krakow is absolutely charming and has some interesting day trips available to the salt mines and concentration camps. Once on tour the bicycles, hotels and food were excellent. The forests and farmlands were lovely. The birds were singing, roosters crowing, and the spring blooms were abundant. We saw wild boar in the woods the first day and wolf tracks another. The route maps were detailed and easy to read. The tour company was quick to work out any issues such as transporting us on day 2 of cycling due to severe weather and flood warnings. This being said, I must point out this was not a bicycle path but a bicycle route utilizing narrow roads with usually light traffic (but some sections were busy), logging roads, dirt and gravel (possibly rutted), and horror of all horrors...soft sand. The third day of cycling was bone jarring at times and though only 40km we were exhausted. The last day of cycling was 65 km instead of 55km listed. We traveled all week through extremely rural areas with no restrooms, restaurants, shops, or tourist sights during the whole cycling part of the day most days. (be sure to take snacks!) When a village appeared on the map it normally meant a group of houses and a church...but no commercial establishments. Friday we did see a few businesses but it was a holiday so they were closed. If there were castle ruins at the beginning we didn't see them. The bunker mentioned on day 6 was closed. The Abbey/Castle was closed for renovation which was a major selling point of interest when booking (we were put in a nice hotel as a substitute). The last hotel though nice was very crowded with young families and it was very noisy late into the night. It also required a taxi drive to town. This tour takes you through the former soviet block section of Poland. Overall my friend and I didn't mind doing this tour since we have experienced the other tours first, but feel you should be aware of what you are signing on for: remote cycling in non tourist/commercial type areas over possibly challenging surfaces.

We are a group of ten seniors who arranged a modified 8 day trip with guide and van support for this tour. The tour was first class, the guide was excellent and very knowledgeable about all three countries. The van driver was very good as well and a character!
I wouldn't recommend abbreviating the tour as we did because it involves too much riding in the van but in every other respect, the tour is excellent. A great way to gain knowledge and see the sights of an area of the world less travelled!

I was lucky both with guides and a group. The programme and route were done really well too. It was amazing experience I would recommend to everybody and I already done it and I continuing recommend tripsite.com too.

Are you looking for an adventure? This is the tour for you, it is visually, mentally and physically stimulating. The most organized trip I have ever been on, the day starts early and ends with a fire around the boma, just awesome. The guides are a wealth of knowledge about the history of the country and the wild life. The mountain biking rides are well planned and exciting. Accommodations and food are top notch. You will not be disappointed regarding wild life, we saw the big 5 and much much more.

Fiz este trajeto em setembro de 2018 foi maravilhoso ,um trajeto fácil ,hotéis muito bom ,cafe da manha excelente e atendimento ótimo, mesmo sem falar a língua não tive dificuldades ,o trajeto e bem sinalizado passando por lugares lindos ,a bike também e boa ,não e uma mtb como estou acostumada mas respondeu bem ao trajeto ,enfim vale a pena conferir ...adorei.

We both enjoyed the coast line part of biking. The least would have been biking through tons of farmers fields, pretty but enough. Tips would be to check your map every morning and your trail numbers. Take your time, we tended to hurry too much. Wanting to get to the next hotel before evening. The distances look long but you eat up the miles quickly on your bike. Beautiful scenery and nice people. Good food at every stop. We recommend bringing skin cream and proper biking shorts. My husband did suffer a little with skin rashes.

Meeting the native people from the Netherlands and Belgium. Meeting other cyclists on the tour routes.

The bike route for your trip to Sicily takes us through farms of the regions. Very interesting to see how so many tomatoes and eggplants grow in green houses.

We had a great time touring the area. The hills were a challenge! The hotel food was varied and tasty.

The best trip i’ve ever done was through Danubio, from Passau to Vienna. It was perfect, the scenery, the route, the boat. It was my first time in a bike and tour trip. It was in 2016 and since then it,’s the only way i like to travel. A new world for me, I felt like a child recovering my childhood near from nature!

We biked around Lake Constance in August and can’t speak too highly of this great cycling adventure! Mostly on well- marked, dedicated, flat bike trails winding through apple orchards, vineyards, sunflower and strawberry fields with stunning views of the lake. We loved exploring the pretty, small towns, castles and churches and savored lots of local delicacies. We swam in the clear, blue waters, soaked up some sun on pretty beaches, and enjoyed lots of art - interesting statues, an international sandcastle building competition, and an art exhibit at the top of Pfander Mountain. The joy of this type of trip is that you go at your own pace and get to spend time doing whatever appeals! We got lost almost daily, but somehow this added to the adventure... directions to hotels in bigger towns were poor, with maps often leaving out many road names. Accommodations were varied - some basic hotels and some charming family owned inns. Breakfasts were generous feasts and hotel staff helpful and friendly. This was our second Tripsite adventure and we will certainly be back for another!!

I have to say the whole trip was amazing! We biked around Lake Constance! The hotels were clean and the breakfast at each hotel was delicious!

Our self-guided bike ride along the Camino from Porto to Santiago de Compostela was a bit tough along the walking trail sections; but, the overall experience was fantastic. The high quality accommodation was exceptional - just what we needed at the end of each day! Recommend to anyone with a reasonable level of fitness.

Every bike should come with a FPS or Harmon with the route loaded in it. Pulling out a piece of paper at every turn is not an option

Astounding scenery. Experiencing the country off the beaten path. Seeing medieval villages and sights I never would have found on my own. We did feel that the difficulty of the ride was somewhat underrated, but we would still highly recommend it.

Riding with a local guide has so many advantageous. We were taken to places that we wouldn't have seen if we organized this by ourselves. We learnt so much about the country and its culture through our experienced and knowledgeable guides; and we always felt safe. The scenery was amazing. The organization of the food, accommodation and bike routes was outstanding. The highlight was riding our bikes right next to giraffes, hippos and baboons. The last night we were able to pat a cheetah and watched a bob cat join us for breakfast. I will never forget this trip. it had everything plus more.

The entire trip was incredible! So glad we chose the upgraded accommodations as we stayed at some remarkably unique properties. Two were old castles and one we referred to as the garden of Eden. The scenery was incredible throughout the route and the food was delicious! The best part of the trip was the people we met along the camino. So many bikers and hikers were there from around the world on personal journeys and were incredibly interesting to talk to along the route and whenever we stopped. I would definitely recommend this trip and will absolutely do it again. Tripsite was amazing recommending this trip at the last minute and for connecting us with the fabulous local company who took care of us while we were there.

Loved going around Lake Constance. We experienced three different countries and loved the food in each one.

I loved riding through Grein and the Wachau Valley, just beautiful!

Tripsite staff are very knowledgeable , helpful and friendly. Anna found us an ebike on short notice on our Italian tour.