France Tour Reviews — 721 to 750 of 943

Highlights: Our daily biking trips, having a varied ride each day with different kms, visits and scenery, plus even a hike to a castle as well. My only suggestion is to keep this spontaneity as each day is an adventure with the known luxury of the barge awaiting us at the end of each ride.

Most Memorable Part? That is so hard to answer because there were so many of them. I do plan to enter your contest very soon. As for tips or suggestions for others...By all means considered a Tripsite bike trip for your next vacation. It has so much to offer. And don't let your fear of being able to complete the daily bike rides stop you. We had in our group of 21: an 80-year-old, a person with a "boot" on his foot due to an injury, a person with a sore back, and several people who don't bike regularly. All of them were able to not only complete our daily rides, they did so with no struggles and enjoyed themselves. E-bikes can be used by those who have trouble with longer or more challenging rides. There is something about riding in a group that bonds cyclists together. You go slow enough to have conversations and see all the details you could miss when going by bus or car, yet fast enough to cover miles of interesting terrain.

Most memorable part: Discovering new and very interesting places with good friends.

Traveling on the Merlijn is always a delight. The accommodation are great and the food was delicious. Our trip along the Mosell was utterly charming. This was my third sailing with Jantien and Henck and I hope it wasn't my last.

Memorable and very satisfying tour. The Merlijn and her crew were wonderful, friendly, and efficient, even while operating one member short (due to illness). The route along the Rhein and Moselle Rivers was beautiful, historic, and made for great cycling. The extras offered by the tour, wine tasting trip, winery tour, Roman mosaic and others, were highlights, and the food on board was great. I'll be back.

Wide range of scenery and experiences especially going on the barge through the tunnel and excellent guiding by Fred.

The overall experience of the barge & bike tour through wonderful countryside, villages & towns was excellent. The barge skipper/owner & staff were very good & most pleasant. The meals were of a high standard & variable throughout the two weeks.
The bikes were also very good. I had ordered an electric bike with our booking but the order did not go through. However, the ordinary hybrid bike provided did the job so I happily stayed with that.
We were also to have a double bunk, but that request did not get through either, but that was OK.

We enjoyed the freedom of making our own decisions with our self-guided tour. We did not necessarily follow the maps and we chose to do completely different things on two days. The area was beautiful with a lot of different environments to enjoy. The hotel had wonderful staff who refused you nothing. The food was delicious and different. We were forced to use our French since there is very little English spoken in the area. We enjoyed the immersion into the community.

Crew, guide, staff were attentive, cordial and helpful. Barge was clean and comfortable. Bike routes were very scenic and interesting. Mary Ann, our guide was very knowledgeable, and simply terrific. Will we go again?....absolutely yes.

Most memorable part: Going through the locks. Tip would be to practice cycling up hills.

Aside from the amazing scenery my most memorable experience was the night we stayed in a 12th century farmhouse that had been painstakingly restored to a grand chateaux complete with gardens and guest house.

My mom and I booked the trip from June 3- 10, 2017 from Moret-sur-Loing to Compiegne. What a fantastic holiday!! The biking was incredible and the bikes were in excellent shape - very easy to ride. Wieger was an excellent guide both on and off the bikes. We experienced France from a totally different perspective - biking in the forests, into Fontainebleau and having a picnic in the garden; stopping along the Seine for coffee at a small cafe; biking into Paris to Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Every night Wieger would give us a small tour of the town we were moored in. The meals that Thea made each day were 5* - excellent!! The Clair de Lune was a lovely place to call our home each night and our captain Marco was very accommodating and friendly. We highly recommend this trip - what a fantastic experience!!!

Besides the beautiful scenery, the staff on the boat were so friendly and helpful. They worked as a team, and the relationship with the guests was wonderful. We made many new friends, and had such a good time. Leaving, we had tears in our eyes. We loved the wineries and tasting many new wines. Although we understand the purpose of corkage fees, we thought they were too high, as we came back with one or two new ones every day! Loved the trip!

The routing in Bordeaux was great. Amazing scenery, passing through little towns and managing our way through a city or two made for an amazing adventure. One day I had a big problem with my bike and with a phone call I had a young man show up and fix it. He was my hero.

Loved the beauty of the rolling hills, vineyards and chateaus. Due to the hills, I would rate 2 of the days more moderate to difficult, leaning more to moderate. The maps and booklets are hard to follow, definitely have 1 person in your group get the GPS, it should be mandatory with all the turns. There is only a deposit required.
The staff were attentive, hard working and fun! The food was exceptional. We highly recommend this tour!

Accommodations faultless. Bike company efficient and I loved my bike. Maps very inadequate, we should not have been on "on ramps" to or navigating 4 lane highways, check out the maps through Cavaillon for example. More moderate than recreational cycling especially the hills. Great on an E bike if you had one. Scenery exquisite. Weather too! Thank you to Mary for organizing or extra nights in Avignon, another great hotel.

"easy to moderate" was at the outset incorrect, it was "moderate to difficult" when one considers the length and incline of the hills. Also, our group of twelve experienced 3 flat tires, the first time in many years of biking in Europe, and each was on an e-bike. The hotels, on the other hand were exquisite!

Had a great time on this tour through Paris on the Clair de Lune. Marco, Thea, and Weiger were all great. A Dutch boat and crew through Paris! The daily rides were good. Anyone who has cycled around towns and flat trails could do it. Cycling into Paris city centre was a thrill. Food was very good on the boat.

The most memorable part was biking immediately after Fountainbleu, through the park's woodlands.

The most memorable part of the trip was the scenery and atmosphere.

Two items that were not as expected.
The literature states two guides but there was only one guide. This means there could only be one guided ride per day. So provide two guides or change the description of the trip to say only one guided ride per day.
Our pre-trip information provided a location for the where the barge would be moored in Paris. We selected a hotel near this location and planned activities based on this location. The boat did not dock at this location. We were not told that the location was changing. The boat docked. We didn't know where we were at and our guide also didn't know where we were at. Guide was very good. This was an issue with the boat captain.

This tour should be rated moderate/difficult. There are many steep climbs. I had an E bike so not bad for me. The non E bikers had a big job. If everyone had an e bike, a very enjoyable journey. The scenery was gorgeous. The hotels were beautiful and welcoming. The maps provided by the trip organizer and rather GPS could have been more detailed.

Needed the second guide as group unwieldy for one. Unlike prior trips, guide gave little info on trip sites/locales, despite being quite personable.

The Captain and crew were just wonderful. While the sights were certainly great, like cheese making, Champagne tasting, visitng the ruins and the WWII cemeteries it was the warm welcome from the Captain and crew that really made this trip. There was nothing they wouldn't do for us including getting fresh baguettes every day, finding out our personal preferences for drinks after a long day in the saddle, and in general giving 110% to keep everyone happy. I strongly recommend the Captain and crew of the Zwaantje! I also must mention a big thank you to Carla and her crew at Tripsite for their assistance in getting us additional e-bikes. Without the e-bikes some of us just wouldn't have made the hills, with them we enjoyed every minute. Thank you!

Ah...The trip was memorable for so many reasons, the people, the sites. Bikes were amazing to ride. Loved the infinity gears. We loved the Soleo, however it sunk due to some submerged metal. The staff did their level best to help the passengers continue vacation, get to their embassy to get new passports, medications, and put us up in hotels. The Estello was brought up to continue our trip. There were some circulation/moisture issues on the Estello so we didn't enjoy that boat as much. One suggestion would be to do a short first day clinic to ensure riders understand basic group riding etiquette. Rounding the city round about would have been better/safer had we all gathered and taken the lane to go as a group rather than single file around in such an extended line. Then resume to single file along country/city roads. The sites were amazing but there were some areas that must have required more city riding. Loved the Carmarge horses, fields of poppies, flamingos, roman stadium and aquaduct. Loved the group of people and the crew. Peter and Sheena did a great job despite their loss of the boat. Marco was awesome, he was our single contact after the barge sunk he helped organize us and processed us thru what had to be done. Arie also was a huge help during this process.. (the owner of the boat was in and out, he didn't even recognize any of the passengers try to apologize for the situation or see how we were doing.. not a fan of the owner of the boat) Oh the folks at Tripsite who I contacted did try to see what they can do. We have separate insurance as suggested but I'm not sure if Tripsite will try to make any reparations for our interrupted trip.. we missed 2 days of cycling.. I wouldn't mind a discount on a future trip.

The scenery , chateaus and winery were beautiful.

The most memorable part was beautiful scenery, especially the magical villages we rode through in Provence.

The Route Guide that we received was in German. We called Velociped and they said that they ran out of English guide - Basically we were SOL and not getting the Route Guide in English. They knew it way before hand that they did not have any English Route Guide - they should have let you or us know and maybe sent us written instructions for the route. We had difficulty in the first 3 days of the trip. We did not even get any instructions of how the electric bikes worked or how to operate it. The first day - my wife struggled on the ebike because it was not working right- we had to call. Instructions on what to do and how to start it would have been good. Very poor customer service. In addition, we signed up for CLASS A hotels, which was supposed to be 3 or 4 stars - not one of the hotels provided was a 4 star. The scenery along the Mosel River was spectacular, the luggage transfers between hotels was great.

We had a very enjoyable trip with beautiful scenery, good rides and pretty good weather most of the time. The Route maps and detailed instructions could be improved upon. There were several mistakes on which way to turn as well as confusing instructions. Luckily, we had GPS with us to help out in various situations.
The food was very tasty, esp. the dinners. Great young chef.
One thing which bothered us was that we were told not to bring any wine aboard the boat - we were to only purchase wine that was available on the boat via the token machine. Odd, since we were traveling and bicycling in Bordeaux WINE country, visiting chateaus daily!! We think that there should be another arrangement in that area. It's apparently a financial situation although it was explained that they didn't want wine spills in the cabin. A damage deposit could be arranged if that's really the issue.
Otherwise, the staff, bikes and experience was great. This was our 3rd Bike/Barge trip with TripSite. Gladly recommend it often to others. We especially enjoyed St. Emilion (tour of monolithic church was amazing!) and riding to/from Blaye and touring the Citadel.

We took this trip from Compiegne to Moret-sur-Loing in September. It was just perfect in every way. There were eight in our group and Marco made us feel like family. The bike ride along the Seine was just beautiful with views one would never see from a car. There is so much activity along the river and in the evening we were guided around the towns where the barge was moored for the night. The bike ride through Paris was personally terrifying for me, but was also a thrill. I would probably do it again. Our guide Yought was full of stories and also very supportive. I could not have done it without him. WE all appreciated Kim who prepared wonderful meals with great variety and was always there to welcome us back at the end of the day. This was the perfect bike/barge trip. We are now thinking about taking a trip in Holland with the Clair de Lune.