5 Star France Tour Reviews — 181 to 210 of 607

The bike and barge was amazing,
The group of 21 related well and had many happy times, riding and chatting after the day.
The ride leaders did a great job, especially with the changes necessary due to the lock closures.
Great adventure, recommend this highly.

Everything was great! Exceeded my expectations. I would recommend a GoPro !

Everything was great! Exceeded my expectations. I would recommend a GoPro !

Loved this tour. The scenery was beautiful , the historic sights amazing and our guides Sarina and Fabien were wonderful. They prepared delicious picnic lunches each day, so pretty they were worthy of a food magazine cover. The winery tour was really fun but I think my favorite part was the last days ride through the Ardeche canyon. We met up with a herd of goats who were completely unpreturbed by our presence or that of the several vehicles they blocked!

Cycling through the stunningly beautiful and varied landscapes. Not to be rushed and stop for coffee breaks to enjoy watching the locals .

Road cycling in and between small villages in the Loire Valley countryside is a great experience that we will remember for a lifetime. The air was fresh and clean; the farm roads and paths quiet and almost entirely car-free; and the locals we encountered along the way were delighted to attempt conversation with us. We often stopped along the way at small local patisseries, boulangeries, and ice cream shops for sustenance, which was heavenly and inexpensive by American standards. We traveled by train from Paris to the start of our tour in Orleans and again by train from the end of our tour in Le Croisic back to Paris. The trains conveniently ran frequently, quickly and on-time.

We bookended our self-guided cycling tour with a few days in Paris at both ends of the tour. We were glad that we gave ourselves time to adjust to the nine-hour time difference and the attendant rigors of travel before getting on our rental bikes in Orleans. Taking a few days at the end before returning home gave us an opportunity to visit the Palace at Versailles, the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, as well as learning how to navigate the Paris Metro and RER transit systems without the pressure of catching a flight or a train.

Our tour was customized at our request to include the routes of three six-day tours offered by Tripsite, run back-to-back. If we were to do this tour again, we'd include some extra overnight stays in the tour to give us a chance to spend more time doing activities off the bike.

We elected to purchase a dinner package. This was helpful as it made sure we had reservations at suitable restaurants where we sampled French haut cuisine that we likely would have missed had we not bought the package. In France, many smaller towns have limited dinner service on Sunday and Monday evenings, so having reservations in advance saved us from going hungry a couple of times. We also elected to purchase a château tours package, as we anticipated long lines at the ticket windows for château tours.

Our accommodations were excellent. All of them were well suited to cycle tourists, providing safe and secure places to park our bicycles overnight.

The rental bikes we used were very suitable for touring and well-maintained, and came with repair kits that came in handy when we experienced a couple of flat tires. The rental service was very accomodating when we wanted to change our pedals to SPD-style pedals and replace a non e-bike with an e-bike during the tour. The e-bike had a removable battery so we could charge it in our hotel room.

Tripsite provided an app for our smartphones, “Roadbook for Discovery.” The app proved to be useful for navigating the trip stages as it would notify us when we were off-course, provide use with descriptive information for places of interest and the availability of food and picnic areas along and near the route. It also includes an “SOS” feature that we did not need to use. Having the routes on our GARMIN GPS devices with European cycling maps would have been an improvement in navigating the routes. We learned to rely on the Loire Vélo road signs for most of our journey. Having a GPS is helpful when the "official" route is blocked or detoured.  SHOW MORE 

EXCELLENT staff on the barge, Magnifique lll. Only tip for others: ENJOY the beautiful scenery and the lovely staff

Food prepared for dinners and beautiful scenery on the rides

The city of Dijon is a wonderful place to spend a few days before starting on this tour. Riding from Dijon, which I loved, I was struck by how soon I was riding through wine country. The terrain is very gentle and the vineyards are beautiful. I stopped at several vineyards and sampled some very nice pinot noir, Chardonnay and rosé wines. I found several wineries that were recommended to visit, and a few that I went off the tour route to find. The weather was beautiful, the accommodation was nice and the wineries were world class.

Our trip was another trip of a lifetime. Number 5 with trip site. This company is the best. There is no other that will give you this type of service for the money. We have used them five times over the last 10 years and will continue to. Each trip has surpassed the last one in regards to being another trip of a lifetime that out does the one previous. Our group has gone on two trips to Croatia want to Greece/Turkey, one to Brussels and one to Germany. I will be planning the next one soon. You are missing out if you did not take advantage of this opportunity to book with trip site for any of their biking boating trips. Germany gear grinders, Croatia crazy crew, Greece gear grinders, Belgium bike bashers, more to come.

The Crew, The CHEF*****, The Views, The Guides, The people we met along the way!!

I just did this tour from Paris to Bruges. It was awesome. At 80 I was the senior participant. Marius(Captain), Henk ( Mate), Barbara(Chef), Harm (Guide) were the highlight for me as I could converse with them in Dutch and they were most accommodating of my age. Meals were awesome, daily laundry service was a life saver and the guide, Harm was informative and entertaining with a great sense of humor. The accommodations were very comfortable. Marius obviously took great pride in his boat and the experience he provided to his clients. I would certainly sail with him again.

We have done four cycle trips in Europe using Tripsite and we loved this one the best. Our cycling tour guide Alex was so familiar with the tiny lanes, quaint villages and back country roads and we saw southern France through a lens that would not have been available to us if we had driven ourselves. She was passionate and knowledgeable about all the history that we were witnessing and there were many additional tours along the way. The Estello boat was compact, clean and well-run with delicious meals. I would highly recommend this Provence, Wilderness of Camargue tour to anyone wanting to experience the rural beauty of southern France. PS Bring your own water bottles as they are no longer provided.

I have cycled in many parts of France and this was one of the most beautiful. The tour takes you through vineyards, fields of sunflowers, fields of produce, hilltop villages, castles. We found fabulous coffee stops and great food. We choose the basic hotel package. 2 of the hotels are very basic but the beds were clean and comfortable and the meals provided were excellent. I personally would opt to upgrade next time. This tour has 2 days of hills which were doable and provided fabulous views. You need to be a regular cyclist to enjoy. It was quite something to cycle through these high vineyards and villages. I highly recommend this tour. The bikes were excellent and similar to what we use at home. We had a good hand off.The gps provided stopped working after 2 days but we easily used the ride with gps app that we had downloaded. I would make sure I had this as a backup. A couple of the restaurants and sites were actually closed down so double check before you head out. I love dealing with Tripsite as everyone is so helpful.

Cycling each day in beautiful weather. I found the seats quite hard even though I took my own memory foam seat cover. The rides are long and sitting on hard seats can be a problem, so I’d recommend taking a comfy lambs wool seat cover. Friends had one and they looked great. The guides do stop every 20 mins for a water & bathroom break which was great. The boat was really lovely, nicely decorated, our cabin downstairs was big enough to be comfortable, the food was exceptional and plenty of it. A wonderful experience overall.

The chef! The crew were fantastic and made the trip. The barge is basic and aging, but clean and well equipped. The cycling routes were full of history and beauty. A few of the back roads and bike paths were rough but manageable. The rest were fantastic.

The crew were fabulous and provided a wonderful experience. Beautiful scenery and Alex our guide explained the history of each area during our cycling adventures which was an added bonus.

Great itinerary, good hotels, beautiful scenery. Bikes in excellent condition.

Very nice trip! We were celebrating our anniversary so opted for the 'luxury' level accommodations, each of which was nice and unique. We were assigned an extremely tiny room in the last hotel, but that was (I think) just luck of the draw and their lovely pool area was nice enough to make up for it. The bike routes were mostly awesome, but there were a few spots that need to be slightly revised in just a couple spots for safety. Overall, lots of beautiful vineyards, vistas, lovely hill towns. If you are a foodie, some of the hotels have Michelin star offerings, but they are closed a couple days of the week-- our timing was slightly off with the days we were in the hotel in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue was when the days their restaurant was closed, so if that is important to you, I'd recommend starting this tour on a day that enables you to overlap with at least one open day.
We started on a Saturday, and while that wasn't great for some of the restaurants in some towns, it still worked out well for hitting an amazing local products market in Gourdes and in St Remy a couple days later. We still ate amazing food - many many great options in each of the cities you will stay in.

This was the perfect vacation. We were biking in 3 beautiful countries, enjoying the scenery with a guide, then going back to the barge and having great meals. Had evening tours of the towns. Great communication before the trip from Tripsite and during the trip, we had the guide and crew who were above and beyond in anything we needed for a good trip. We will be going again next year on another one.

The villages were so beautiful. It seemed as though they could have been taken from a storybook or a movie.

Our crew worked seamlessly to provide an optimal experience.

The itinerary, crew and food were very good. Also, the fellow bikers were all very nice and sociable. Lack of storage space in the room was a minor problem, but we adapted.
The bikes were somewhat of an issue as about 50% of the bikes were e-bikes, which when mixed with the hybrids created problems on hills (most hills were leading up to bridges),
E-bikes do not have to build up speed, so stayed constant, but if the hybrids were behind, we could not always build up speed to get them up the minor hills as quick, causing delays. Only having 8 total gears, without another smaller one in the front compounded the issue for some. The e-bikes should be at the rear of the group. Speed is not an issue for the rest of the biking on level ground.

We were very pleased with the boat, the team, and the itinerary. The guides were knowledgable and very helpful. The boat was comfortable. Food was good. overall, a great experience and highly recommended.

This was an amazing tour for several reasons. Firstly, there were 7 (rather than a full complement of 14) experienced cyclists over the age of 60, none of whom used an e-bike. This allowed the guide to change the cycle route to reflect our abilities, to show us some special sights and to give us a special experience. Harm, the guide, did this with ease. Secondly, the crew of the Feniks was excellent. This includes Fiona, the captain, Rainier, the assistant and Hilde, the cook. Thirdly, the laundry service was a game changer. If we had understood what this service involved, we could have packed considerably lighter.

This is the 2nd time our family of 4 (age 19 to 63) joined a bike and boat tour. Last time it was a much bigger boat on the Danube whereas this time is a much smaller but very comfortable and cozy boat Princess Royale on the Mosel. We are very glad we picked this tour!
To start with, the itinerary was carefully designed to cover enough quaint small towns to impress us, allowing enough break/rest in between for those (like me) who are physically less fit! The scenery along the Mosel needs no elaboration! We were lucky that the weather has been superb: not too hot nor too cold, no rain, nice breezy every now and then!

But what makes this trip especially memorable has to be the crew:
(1) Our guide Ilsa (not sure is I am spelling it right) is just amazing! Knowledgeable, professional, well organized, friendly....we saw her riding out to double check next day's route even after the day's long ride! At each stop point, be it architecture or scenery, she had enough history or stories to amuse us! Our other guide Arindena seems newer to her job but we are seeing lots of energy and potential in her too!
(2) The chef Astrid - what a charm! Not only did her cuisine exceeded our expectation on a trip of this price range (to be fair, we are not paying the price of a Viking cruise ship!), more importantly, her enthusiasm in sharing with us her food preparation details before every dinner was a true delight! In our culture (Chinese) we have a saying: those who respect their job will be happiest with their job. We most definitely see the respect, love and care in her work and how all these transpire into excellent meals in our tummies!
(3) The rest of the crew - Anita the host, Theresa the waitress, Ronnier the sailer, Nico the captain (and his wife) - all are always so friendly and helpful. We found them more like a family then a crew. Our 2 young daughters have befriended with them (especially with young Theresa) and were sad to leave!

We will most definitely recommend this tour, and especially this boat!!! We hope to one day join their other tours! Thank you again and have a wonderful summer!

Mosel river valley is beautiful. Dinners on the ship each night were delicious.

For me the most memorable part of the trip was meeting all the passengers and crew and enjoying their company for a week. The rides each day that were planned were great and I can't say enough about the food we had on the boat. I would do another boat/bike trip again!

Beautiful French countryside with amazing staff aboard the L'Estello. A special shout-out to our outstanding chef, Josef;steward, Alice; tour leader, Alessandra, and Captain Filippo. The daily rides were fun! There were interesting places to visit everyday.

Seeing the beautiful country side of the Champagne region of France. The three course meals each night were spectacular! Great job Chef Frank.

Me and my wife enjoyed the trip very much. The boat was OK, the service, the crew and the atmospher were excellent. The cabins were compact but wisely built and planned. Next time, try to arrange climate with lower temperatures...........