4 Star Europe Tour Reviews — 541 to 570 of 1194

the trip to the flowers was outstanding.

Riding through the countryside and seeing the flowers in the fields...................then smelling the waft of the hyacinths as you continue riding. Intoxicating on every level !

Don't let the weather determine whether or not you are going to ride that day. The weather changes quickly and you will miss out !

Pay close attention to the explanation of the road signage, colours of the bike paths and walking paths.

Fragrant fields of hyacinth

The hotel was good, food was excellent with reasonable. The staff was very accommodating. We enjoyed the ocean view The hotel was conveniently located to shopping and transportation. We found Maps. Me to be a somewhat difficult program to use. The bikes were somewhat unstable but useable.

Gorgeous scenery and lovely people! I will say that we did not luck out where weather was concerned, but that’s Mother Nature for you! The crew on our boat was fantastic and made our stay very comfortable.

The scenery was beautiful. I was disappointed that I had to miss the last two days of the biking tour because the ship had engine trouble and had to go back to Amsterdam for repairs.

Eating apple pie along the way!

It was the operational windmill / sawmill at Zaanse Schans. To me this was the capstone to man harnessing nature for his purpose. While creating land from the sea was monumental, utilizing the means of pumping water to another level for more productive enterprises was genius. I wish there had been more history around the tour. It would have been difficult to match the cycling routes with the flow of history, but some touchstones along the way would have enhanced the experience. Maybe a history night before the first ride with references to the history in the evening before each subsequent ride.

The food, the guide and the route and biking were all great. Excellent value for a low budget trip.

You will love, love, love the quiet days on the road, the accommodations, the sights and the breakfasts. You may not love the instant coffee in some locations or the fact that the gps system stops talking to you in the towns where you most need it. The Evora loop day was a bit of a disappointment due to travelling on a highway for a good part of it, especially after having so many glorious days prior to that.

Amsterdam to Bruges was our first bike and barge experience in 2016. The experience of small group travel, seeing villages and countrysides at 12-14 mph, and the coziness of barge life intoxicated us. We have since done six more tours. Everyone unique, quirky, full of beautiful vistas, and future friends from all over the world.
If you are considering this type of travel adventure for the first time, this tour is for you. AND for you stubborn Americans, there is absolutely no stigma attached to e-bikes. In fact, they are prolific throughout Europe.

For me, the most memorable parts of the trip were the moments our trip guide, Hein, stopped, got us off our bikes and took time to do some interpretation of the landscape, or when he brought us to little known local places. One example was a local museum for traveling entertainers and amusements. In the states we would call this a circus museum. Hein described life for us in the walled and protected castles and the city-states of Italy before there was an Italy, and the power of the family heads in the se little kingdoms. He took us on a tour of one of those castles that is not generally open to the public. I also appreciated the 90-minute guided tours by Christina in Mantova and her counterpart in Venice. Passionate about the cities that they call home, they both really brought these special places to life for me.
Not to overlook the moderate exercise we got on bikes everyday, which was helpful because the delicious food our crew served was difficult to turn down. I would have preferred longer distances, but the biking was as advertised: easy.
A couple of tips: take precautions to protect yourself from Covid. If you choose a water taxi to get you around Venice, ask the boat driver when reserving your ride, and again before you board the boat, what the fare is; the cost tends to inflate when it comes time to pay the bill. And ask your tour guide to reserve tickets in advance to see the interior of San Marco Basilica and the Doge's Palace in Venice. I didn't do this and was unwilling to wait in a long line to get in, so I missed both. But we did see a number of other unbelievable churches from the Rennaissance era all week in Verona, Mantova and Venice.

scenic views.great accommodations and enjoyable group dinners. Guides were friendly and helpful.

suggestions- rating it as " easy" was not accurate. the varying terrains made it more challenging. hill durations might be described better. I would give participants a branded water bottle as a take away.

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.

Crew was amazing. Everyone helpful. 30 person biking too big. Suggest it be split into 2 15 person groups.

The most memorable part of the trip was time aboard the Ave Maria. The crew made every effort to make sure all our needs were met, suggested places to visit that you wouldn’t find in guide books, fed us the most delicious local foods prepared from ingredients found that day and recipes from their grandmothers, their creativity and their obvious joy in cooking. I can still taste the lasagna with squash flowers! The other passengers were all fascinating people as well, all very experienced travelers and bikers. The thing I want others to know is that some parts of the trip, especially leaving Chioggio and Ferrara, we’re on busy roads with cars whizzing by you and crossing roundabouts and corners, and that even on the low traffic, one lane roads, you’ll frequently hear “car up” or “car back”. There were times when you could not enjoy the scenery because you had to watch for potholes and negotiate gravel. We bike on an at least weekly basis but often struggled to keep up and keep going on some of the 44K+ plus days. We preferred the easygoing pace of the self guided Danube trip. We booked pre and post tour accommodations through TripSite in Venice and Mantova. Both hotels were charming and accommodating with wonderful breakfasts.

Lovely route, wonderful guides, comfortable accommodations. Absolutely superb food!

Bring your own water bottle - despite the tripsite literature, one is not provided

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.

The trip was beautiful, the rides on the islands were fantastic, and the guides were absolutely the best! Riding on the islands of Hvar, Korcula, and Brac was a once in a lifetime experience. We loved it. Our guides added a great deal to the rides by offering explanations of the history, the language, and the sites. They also set up guided tours (included) in Split and Trogir that were excellent. The guides' knowledge of the area was remarkable; they made the tour that much more interesting. The on-board service was very good; Tina did an excellent job. The scenery was consistently breathtaking. We loved this trip.

The one area that could be improved was the on-board dinners. For the most part they were unremarkable, and sometimes disappointing. If the food were as good as it's been on other bike and boat trips this would have been a 5-star tour. I hope this can be improved.

We really enjoyed the small group of 11 guided experience. The accommodations and dinners included were exceptional nice.

We found the biking experience challenging—not the number of miles, but the condition of the paths. We were often on abandoned, bumpy, poorly kept roads or busy roads. Rarely were we on a bike path.

My e-bike had structural defects that held the battery to the frame and no front shock absorbers.

Our guide Suzanna was very fun, friendly and accommodating to our group!

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.

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.

A nice trip but the rides should be longer and normal bikes shouldn't be mixed in with E-Bikes.

Of course the beautiful views of the Adriatic and the wonderful seafood will be fond memories, as will be the kind attention and care given to me by Anton when I managed to get sick from the food on the plane that landed us in Thessaloniki. He transported my husband and I in the support van for the days until I felt well enough to ride. Although our e-bikes could have been better, and the hotel the first night was pretty basic, we found the rest of the accommodations lovely. And certainly rated this as a memorable bike tour. We have taken almost 2 dozen bike tours over the past twelve years, and have never had better care given by the tour operators.

The food was outstanding! Great chefs. Amazing how hard our small crew worked to provide everything needed. All ran smoothly. Michaela was an outstanding leader. We were disappointed in the lack of coordination between the leader and the bikers as we ride. Corners were not posted at turns; some ended up going the wrong way, and we spent time finding them. Fortunately one person in the “lost” group was able to call our leader. There should always be arrangements for a “sweep” with phone communication to the guide.
Coming home, the pack with the trip literature was stolen. I would like to get another copy of that excellent information. How?

Biking from Noyon - Compiègne, the Compiegne forest was very beautiful to bike through.

As we neared Paris, the biking was sometimes more difficult due to traffic on some sections of the route.

The bike routes were the best and our tour guide Klaas exceeded our expectations

Cycling along dykes near Amorongen and through huge avenues of ancient beech trees in the woods