Pearls of the Alsace Wine Route Tour Reviews — 1 to 7 of 7

We really loved the Alsace region. The first few days we followed the Alsace Wine Route and you really do ride through the middle of vineyards. The scenery is beautiful and the villages are very picturesque. We opted to spend the day in Colmar and I was so glad we did. It was a highlight of the trip.

We found the description of the ride as Moderate to be misleading. We expected rolling hills and some climbs, but the steepness of the hills going into Riquewihr and Kayserberg was extreme. All the other riders we saw on the route that day were on e-bikes. So unless you are a very strong rider, I would recommend getting an e-bike.

The only disappointment with the itinerary was that the trip was changed to end in Saint-Louis, France rather than Basel, Switzerland. There really isn’t much to see or do in Saint-Louis. If this is going to continue, the trip description on the website really needs to be changed.

It was wonderful travelling through the vineyards and chatting with the local farmers as they harvested the grapes. We also enjoyed travelling along scenic rivers and canals. Almost everything was paved, and only a small percentage of the trip was on roads with traffic. But the description of the ride is misleading. it should be described as moderate to difficult. In the material, it gave estimates of the grades of the various climbs. I rode with a Garmin GPS and it showed much different grades. For example, the last (#5) climb on Cycling Day 2 from Obernai into Riquewihr is described as a 3.3 percent grade over 5.06 km. What it doesn't say is that 3.3 percent is the average. In fact, much of the climb was between 3 and 6 percent, and a portion was over 9%. I registered 13% on my Garmin. This is not a moderate activity. We experienced similar discrepancies on some of the other days.

Great trip! Very well planned. Route app was excellent. Make sure to check hotel locations carefully. They are not always in the last town on the days itinerary.

This trip was fabulous, very scenic and the ebikes were perfect. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip although we went at a time when the vineyards were mainly closed for harvest. We made our own picnic lunches along the way or stopped at local pubs and restaurants for lunch and wine. The written directional instructions were very helpful, as were the gps tracks. Julian, our local coordinator was very helpful in resolving a small glitch with our first hotel. All the hotels were great, and the restaurants and food were generally quite good, even though our dinner selections were limited to a few choices. Of the towns we stayed in, Colmar and Kayersburg were the best! The dessert in the Colmar Grand Hotel Bristol was memorably fantastic. The restaurant we were sent to in Basel was rather mediocre and disappointing given what we had pre-paid, especially the horrible cup of fruit cocktail we were given for dessert ( not even on the menu!) The vineyards ended before Mulhouse, which seemed like a very industrial city. And although the scenery into Basel was lovely with rolling hills (ebikes saved the day!) Basel itself was just okay. We would probably skip the Mulhouse-Basel part of the trip if we were to do it again. We would prefer in future to spend more time in Colmar and smaller villages like Kayersburg.

First of all we had spectacular weather on our 8 days of riding on the Alsace Wine Route, from Strasbourg to Basel in late September. +/- 30 miles a day was perfect. It allowed us to get to our destination in the early afternoon, rest up and then go and explore the villages. The scenic beauty was off the charts. It was early fall and the grapes were still on the vine with the leaves turning an autumn yellow color. That with a backdrop of the green hills set us up for some beautiful photographs. The backroads that we took were frequented by locals out for a walk and when passing by, everyone would say bonjour to each other. We loved that! We are already looking at other trips through Tripsite. Great memories.

Only real complaint was the signage throughout the route. More route markers would have been very helpful and prevented us from getting lost several times.

We started with the book with maps and directions. Although it was pretty good, we got lost a couple times with that. I think on the 3rd day we met the woman who wrote the directions and she got us the file for my Garmin. That gave us turn by turn directions with no mistakes. Everyone we met was very pleasant. The trip was great. The bikes were a bit heavy.