Mantova to Venice or Venice to Mantova Tour Reviews — 181 to 210 of 238

I loved the small villages. The international mixture of the group made for excellent discussion among the group. Food on the barge was excellent!

A fabulous experience. We will seriously consider further barge/bike holidays with you.

It was a wonderful trip! I liked that we got to be on the barge when it moved (one time at the end of the day and another in the morning). The food was outstanding and I liked that the chefs described dinner and suggested wine pairings. The barge was very comfortable - even with 3 in a cabin.

Our son (22 years old) was outnumbered by the over 50 crowd but Hein made him feel welcome. Only suggestion - mirrors on the bikes (although I realize that makes them difficult to store and move) and a brief intro on riding in groups.

The crew were AMAZing! Every single one of them. Tami is an amazing guide - super friendly and helpful. All of the crew helpful and a delight. I would definitely go on this type of trip again because of my experience on this trip.

This was my first bike & barge. The bar has been set very high!

The entire bike-barge trip on the Ave Maria far exceeded our expectations. I would highly recommend this trip.

The biking was not as scenic as other trips I have been on. However the food, staff and guide were excellent.

Crew and guides were friendly and extremely helpful. Meals and snacks were great! Good sense of comradery due to the small number of passengers. Good bikes, rides were interesting and manageable.

Understanding the trip was planned for little difficulty, expected that the terrain would be flat, but was hoping for more scenery and countryside to take in while biking. Perhaps if there was an option of having a sag vehicle for those who couldn't/didn't want more difficult terrain so the option was available for those who could do more ... and see more. Overall great experience, friendly crew and excellent food!

The crew aboard the Ave Maria was cheerful and helpful, especially Michaela, who went above and beyond in helping with departure plans. The food was wonderful.
A group of 30 is a lot of work for the cycling guides, but I would have liked a few more rest breaks along the way, especially on the day to Ferrara.

We have decided that this is the only way we now want to see other countries, up close and personal! What a wonderful experience!
Loved getting exercise every day while viewing the beautiful countryside. Even better was ending our ride with wine, a delicious dinner and new friends!

Our Guide, Rosita was excellent, friendly, pleasant and very knowledgeable. Would recommend her anytime.

Recommended for novice cyclists only. Not challenging enough for experienced cyclists.

Sometimes it would have been nice to stop for pictures of the scenery, but did not want to go to the back of the pack or be left behind. Helmut was an excellent guide and made sure everybody was safe. Food on board was the best I had in Italy. Staff very friendly and went the extra mile for our friends birthday.

We should have trained more for endurance. The guides were wonderful and took such good care of us. The bicycles were amazingly comfortable. Beautiful dinners nightly. Thank you all.

This was our second Tripsite trip, last year Germany, this year Italy. I have highly recommended your trip to all my friends. We hope to have the opportunity to take another bike and barge.

We've experienced three Bike and Boat Tour in the past 15 months, and have already booked another for 2016. We absolutely love this mode of travel and the fact that it offers an active holiday, and the best of both site-seeing and exploring the countryside in a way that most other tours simply can not. We love sharing our experience with like-minded international travelers, and find we are extremely well treated by boat staff and guides.Together with the Tripsite staff, the website is a fabulous tool for selecting a holiday in that it allows us to compare boats, distances and routes. As a secondary benefit we find the Bike and Boat Tours offered by Tripsite to be excellent "value for money". We have recommended Tripsite to several friends and acquaintances, some of whom will be joining us on our next tour as "first-timers".

The trip was great but the route was less than expected. The route was too much bike trails away from villages. We will definitely recommend Tripsite but not this trip. We look forward to our next trip with you guys.

Great guides made the trip for us. Allowing 2 bike groups with different strengths was the best way.

We have done 8 trips with Tripsite. All trips were great.

Ave Maria, as well as 3 previous trips on the Merljin, superb. Some guides on Merjijn were mediocre, but Hein is incredible guide/person. Friends have recently taken B/B Red Hat?, bad experience. The above 4 trips speak highly of your program. Looking forward to next trip, F2017.

We loved this trip! It was so fun for our family of four. Our two boys, ages 11 & 14, enjoyed biking and stopping off to swim in the ocean, trying new delicious food, and learning from our wonderful guide, Fabio. The boat was very nice and the crew were lovely.

We had record setting beat the week we were there and yet still had a fantastic trip. The rooms stayed reasonably cool with the AC-- that was a life saver to have available.

If I had to change anything, I'd probably like to have the boat docked closer to Venice proper so it would be more accessible on arrival and through the first couple days. We made it work-- all a good adventure. The scenery on the bike route was relaxing-- not terribly dramatic, but really nice for small town explorers, birders, and those who enjoy farmland/pastoral scenery.
Pros: delicious food, easy cycling terrain, excellent City/town tours, comfortable rooms, great value, easy logistics when you don't have to move your stuff each day, meeting nice people from all over the world.
Cons: weather was exceedingly hot in July (but would do it again anyway!)

We had a fantastic time on the Ave Maria and we're lucky to have Hein as our guide.....great guy!

We have been on seven or eight bike and barge trips in the past and this one was, by far, the best. From the greeting upon arriving, to the spacious and comfortable accommodations and exquisite food. The guide was pleasant and very informative ( great sense of humor, too ) Our hotel reservations in Venice were cancelled at the last minute, but he was able to get us a room. The Ave Maria is a beautiful boat with everything you need. We can't say enough about every crew member. Part of the scenery was not as nice as on other trips, but that couldn't be helped. People at Tripsite were always very helpful and quick to respond. We had a wonderful time. We will highly recommend this Tripsite adventure!

I love our leader Michaela and we want to do another trip with her. I have recommended the Pugna boat Mantova-Venice trip to many people.

Our tour guide Marco was ok, but not outstanding. His commentary was adequate, but we got more from the notes provided.

Tedious farm land, 30 mile an hour winds. Our guide and staff were fabulous! Put them on a little more picturesque route and I would say yes. Marco was absolutely wonderful!

We were self-guided for 3 days. The road guides given us were written for bike riders using a GPS. No GPS was provided. Thus, the guides were a bit confusing. We didn't notice the odometers (and they were not pointed out to us during our orientation) on our bikes until it was too late. We should have attempted to track our mileage against the miles listed from point to point in the guide book. Instead, we followed the advice we were given during orientation, which was to just follow the green arrows. We got very lost one day. We followed the arrows in the wrong direction! We should have paid more attention to the road guide. It might be good to update the guides if GPS's are not going to be provided.