France Tour Reviews — 1 to 30 of 981

We just returned from the Amsterdam to Bruges bike-and-boat tour, and it exceeded every expectation.

The entire experience was exceptional from start to finish. The crew and guides were outstanding—friendly, professional, and genuinely focused on making sure every guest had an amazing time. The service aboard the boat was first-class, yet relaxed and welcoming.

The boat itself was fantastic: comfortable cabins, beautiful common areas, and the perfect place to unwind after each day’s ride. The food was another highlight. Every meal was delicious and thoughtfully prepared, and we looked forward to dinner every evening.

The cycling was exactly what we hoped for. The routes were scenic, well planned, and mostly on incredible bike paths through charming villages, canals, farmland, and historic towns. The bikes were high quality, comfortable, and well maintained, making the rides enjoyable for cyclists of all abilities. The itinerary struck a great balance between riding and exploring.

One of our favorite parts of each day was stopping in small Belgian and Dutch towns for a beer and a cone of fresh frites before continuing on. Those little moments made the trip feel authentic and unhurried.

If you’re considering a European bike-and-boat vacation, this is an easy recommendation. Beautiful scenery, outstanding staff, excellent food, great bikes, a wonderful boat, and an itinerary that lets you experience the Netherlands and Belgium at the perfect pace. We’d book another Tripsite tour without hesitation.

A glorious tour on an amazing ship with super awesome comfy bikes. Can't say enough about the food, staff, scenery, plus there was a festival in every town in Belgium the week we were there which only added to the fun. Thanks to all the staff for giving us a fantastic week!

The terrific barge is owned by a Dutch family and the entire crew was Dutch. That was a plus, they were all excellent and perhaps this factor brought in several other English speaking mountain, e.g. UK, New Zealand and Australia.. This trip surpassed our expectations!

The terrific barge is owned by a Dutch family and the entire crew was Dutch. That was a plus, they were all excellent and perhaps this factor brought in several other English speaking mountain, e.g. UK, New Zealand and Australia.. This trip surpassed our expectations!

Excelent trip, well prepare and when we had a problem with the bikes we recieved inmediat assistance .We enjoy the trip very mucha and everithing went well. Only coment: we had a dinner included in Sarlat and the restaurant try to ignore that was prepaid. At the end we pay half to avoid a bad moment

From top to bottom, everything was absolutely seamless. Communication was prompt throughout, our luggage transfer was precise and without issue, and the routes were masterfully crafted. We are already planning oiur next trip with Tripsite.

Beautiful bike rides through fields of sunflowers and ripening wheat, coffee stops in lovely little villages, wonderful meals prepared by chef Frank, great support leadership and witty information by guides: Wim and Harold, great navigation by captain Erik and staff Milton and Moh.

Boat was well organized, food was delicious Staffs were cheerful,knowledgeable and helpful in all aspects. At the end of the tour staffs and guests were like family, happy bunch.

Amazing views, great locations for lunch breaks (especially near lakes), beautiful towns

We loved the guided bike rides, fabulous scenery and an organized attentive guide, thanks Dick.
The food was amazing and plentiful. We were very well looked after by our chef, Lucie.
We were lucky to have a small group, which meant we were individually well looked after by the crew of 4. Thanks also to our experienced Captain, Chiel and Joanna who ensured all our needs were met.

Hard to say a most memorable!
The fabulous crew and leader, Sara, Lisa, Didi and Micky really made this a special trip but so did the group I cycled with. It is a fabulous adventure.

The cycling was phenomenal: beautiful scenery, wonderful paved designated cycling paths. Our guides were friendly, experienced, just excellent. Our boat, the Magnifique X was beautiful and very comfortable and the excellent staff prepared delicious food and took great care of us.
Definitely one of our best bike and boat trips - this was #9! Hopefully more to come!

I had a good time but I think a lot could have been done better. I was concerned about the health and safety of those participating, including the guide. The weather during the tour was very hot, yet the guide said there was no heat protocol in the company. I worry about the next group that would have been cycling in +40 C temperatures. There was a bit of discussion every evening about the heat and consequent route modifications, and everyone was offered an e-bike because of it, but the young people in the group (and some of the older ones) mostly wanted to take the preestablished route. That meant that I spent half of the trip on the boat. Why wasn't there a system where the cyclists could leave considerably earlier to avoid the afternoon heat? There were various arguments given why this couldn't happen, but none of them seemed very convincing. On one day it took the barge a long time to get to the destination, so the argument was that we'd be waiting at the other end in the heat for the boat. But from a health perspective, waiting in the shade for the boat would have been safer than cycling through the very hot afternoons. Other days the boat got to the next destination early. We could have done our circuit and gotten back to it early.

The company should have had systems in place to deal with the heat. The only one they offered was an e-bike (I had already paid to hire one, so this wasn't a modification for me). The tour guide was a nice guy but his favourite expression seemed to be 'what can you do?'. I would have much preferred someone who took charge, recognised the dangers, and was more forward in suggesting modifications. Overall I felt quite unsafe.

As an example of feeling unsafe, on one day I was left behind by the group because I faced a large deal of traffic. Even the 'sweep' went ahead of me. Eventually the sweep saw me and waited, but we had lost the group. I was amazed that the sweep didn't have the phone number of the guide or the ship. Why wasn't it mandatory that we all write this down/create a contact, before we embarked on the first day. The tour guide said his number had been on the board since the beginning, but had never urged us to write it down. It would have been such a simple thing to do.

There was also poor route planning. On one day the route took us up a very steep potholed path (to the Sancerre village), and three cyclists came off their bikes, each with considerable bruises and cuts. My friend was one of them. The tour guide washed her wound at the top, but wasn't aware of the catastrophe on the route till we all pushed our bikes to the top. He was quite hard of hearing, so I'm not sure if he didn't hear from others what had happened or was himself too exhausted to descend to give help. On this matter, he wasn't young, and I worried for his health having to ride in the very punishing heat too.  SHOW MORE 

Great guide (Paul). Food and cabin only marginal. Dinners were almost always cold.

This was my ninth bike / barge trip and I have enjoyed all of them, but this one was my favorite thanks to the dedicated crew which worked hard to ensure the success of the trip. Diana, Mickey, Virginia and Jeoffrey were all top notch.

This was the second leg of our Loire valley bike ride as we had done Orleans to Tour 2 years ago.
We started in Tour this time and again enjoyed the ease of the electric bikes, which was needed more so on the section especially the last day being the longest. There was an adventure on the last day having to cross the river and put our bikes on a small barge and pull ourselves across... I must admit we definitely needed my friends husband as just 2 females together i don't think we would of managed.
Overall another fabulous trip. I must say the best accommodation was at Chinon. The rooms were huge and Maurice had everything to make you feel at home,we didn't want to leave. Breakfast in the morning was like being king and queen of the castle sitting at a huge fancy dining table so much different to the other generic hotels. We will go back just to stay with him again.

Beautiful countryside! The ride with GPS guide was excellent,

Except for one day of peddling through a very industrial area, the scenery along the Rhine was beautiful. For the most part off road on dedicated wide cycle paths. Each evening the tour director/convenor provided an orientation for the route the following day. The food on the barge was excellent. No complaints at all. Very good value.
Note: The cabins at the back of the barge seemed a bit more cramped and noisy.

The staff and the tour guides made this trip awesome. I would have given it a 5, but we were stuck on the boat in Auxerre for the week due to a broken lock on the Yonne river, so I can't rate what we didn't see. That said, our tour guides developed a beautiful series of bike rides based in our near Auxerre (all on the fly). The staff on the boat were awesome too - working together as a team and making relationships with all the guests. I can say with certainty that all 22 guests had a fantastic week.

Kristen did a wonderful job helping us plan our trip and then executing the logistics. The bikes were first-rate, and when we did have a problem with one, it was quickly swapped out.

Three things impressed me that were different from our last trip with Tripsite.
1. The Tripsite app was superb and quickly replaced a paid bike app I had planned to use. We also liked the local city tour guides in the app.
2. We chose to take a day off every 3 to 4 days and upgraded our lodgings for those double-night stays to Deluxe Accommodations, which we found very nice and greatly appreciated. I want to clarify that you offer two accommodation levels: deluxe and superior. To me, the wording seems reversed: "superior" typically implies a higher level than "deluxe," but here "deluxe" was the better accommodations.
3. The food was delicious throughout the trip. At times, it felt as much like a food tour as a biking adventure, making the experience very memorable.
Thank you for making our trip stress-free and enjoyable.

Everything on his trip was wonderful! The boat was the best one we have been on, the cabins were large and they had sliding doors that opened to the river, the food was gourmet quality. The rides took us to wonderful cities which we walked through and toured from canal boats. The scenery was delightful and changing every day from river views to farmland and small towns. When we got to Paris one of the guides stayed there and was so helpful in getting us to the places we wanted to see.Like our own personal concierge.

Our group of 10 cyclists enjoyed a lovely self-guided tour from Tours to Angers thanks to Tripsite and their local tour operator. Kirsten with Tripsite was very attentive to our needs and spot on in developing a tour package that worked for our group, including merging this tour with the Tours-Angers leg. The scenery was breathtaking, the cycling was varied and fun, and the selected hotels and restaurants were memorable. We highly recommended selecting the chateaux and restaurants packages if you are traveling with a large group.

Our group of 10 cyclists enjoyed a lovely self-guided tour from Tours to Angers thanks to Tripsite and their local tour operator. Kirsten with Tripsite was very attentive to our needs and spot on in developing a tour package that worked for our group, including merging this tour with the Orleans-Tours leg. The scenery was breathtaking, the cycling was varied and fun, and the selected hotels and restaurants were memorable. We highly recommended selecting the chateaux and restaurants packages if you are traveling with a large group.

Memorable points or cities were: Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine tasting . After lunch at the very good Aubergue de Tavel restaurant; memorable cities like Gordes, Venasque (in this hilltop town we had lunch at Les Reparts with a wonderful view); Roussilon the orange and yellow city and to close the trip with the feeling of visiting incredible places, Le Baux-de-Provence. In this town you need to leave the bike aside and walk around it, understanding the history that took place there. The whole way to get to Le Baux is beautiful, as is the return to Saint Remy.

Unusual and excellent itinerary starting in Amsterdam and ending in Paris. Beautiful barge with lovely accommodations and amazing, stunningly presented food. Nice group size.

We had an excellent on-barge experience. The crew—Didier, Omar, and Sara—were fantastic. Our captain, Didier, a fifth-generation (!) barge captain, was delightful and engaging. Omar anticipated every passenger's need, whether spoken or unspoken. Sara was an inventive chef who brought fantastic energy to the boat; her nightly descriptions of the menu made every meal feel like "dinner and a show."

Additionally, we were lucky to have an exceptional group of passengers. Our four-person group from Boston clicked immediately with the travelers from Canada and Florida. In addition to enjoying our time with them on the barge, we collaborated well during our rides to ensure everyone stayed safe, which truly enhanced the trip.

While our experience with the tour guide—an experienced biker but not a natural tour leader—was less positive, it was not enough to dampen our overall enthusiasm for the journey.

Out cycle guide was excellent! We were less satisfied with the Arosa Stella. Promised free internet was not provided and paid internet was poor. Some issues with no AC in rooms, and intermitent hot water. Food was good but were expecting more local French meal options. The food was very German, probably because of large Swiss German and German numbers on the boat. Just seemed to be less of a Provence France experience with very German buffets.

Being the Madian voyage with the crew was a fabulous experience. Great guides, amazing food and wonderful experiences.

Everything was top notch. The quaint hotel in a charming little French village had great accommodations. The grounds were beautiful. Breakfast included meats and cheeses, yogurt, cereal, breads and croissants. Very hearty meal before heading out to ride. The evening meals were varied and all prepared by the restaurant's chef. We enjoyed every meal and the interaction with the staff. Claudia, our host, fitted us for our bikes and met with us each morning after breakfast to go over the routes. She was very thorough and we had no trouble finding our way. The routes were spectacular as they traversed the French countryside with beautiful views and a couple were Tour de France routes. Recommendations for lunch stops were excellent and we enjoyed meeting the local residents. Even though our trip was self--guided, Claudia was always a phone call away if needed. Will definitely return again.

Our bike-barge trip from Aigue-Mortes to Avignon was fabulous. We rode through beautiful countryside and could see why the great painters chose to create their masterpieces in Provence. The wildflowers, farms, vineyards, and white horses were spectacular. Our guide, Gabo, was excellent and shepherded us very well through all kinds of terrains and experiences. He was knowledgeable and prepared. Sara, our chef, made wonderfully delicious, creative meals that we greatly enjoyed. The boat, L'Estello was comfortable and a great place to relax after our long rides. Omar attended to all the details and the captain managed the boat well. The bikes were in excellent condition and were well equipped. We felt it was a great experience.