jefnvk

OK, I got the idea of mini-touring part of Europe on a bike into my head. My vacations are never what one would consider "normal", and I've rather decided I like this idea. I will be taking my own bike, touring credit-card style, with just my normal carry-on backpack, as per usual. I've already looked into costs/logistics and done a comparison with renting/buying/organized tour, I am confident this approach suits my personality, budget, and travel style better.

What I am looking for are some ideas of where to go. Ideally, the trip would be doable in about 5 full days of leisurely-moderate riding, with a total distance of 250-300 miles or so. I am interested in biking being a central part of the trip, but the trip is in no way going to be focusing solely on biking (i.e, no Mont Ventoux). We'd shoot for riding 3-4 hours in the morning, taking a break for a few hours, and repeating again in the afternoon. I do prefer a point to point route, not circular. Trip is likely Sat-Mon, so a 5 day riding schedule gives us a few burner days, to ideally spend in our start/end location, but also as a buffer just in case we run up against some bad weather. The girlfriend, who absolutely dreads roads, will be coming, so something resembling a bike route is a consideration. Timeframe is really anytime from late spring through summer next year.

So far, I've come up with the following ideas:
1) Brussels to Amsterdam. This is by far my top pick. Amsterdam Schiphol has a known supply of bike boxes, so shipping containers at the end are of no concern. The ride itself is seemingly easy on well marked paths, and allows for much "touristy" things to do. I've never been to either, so it is a new experience. Also, I love beer, and both countries are well known for their breweries.

2) Prague-Vienna Greenway. I lived in Prague for a while, would love to go back. Drawbacks to this route are it is on the upper end of my distance limit, and the route doesn't seem to travel through an area with much to do besides riding the path.

3) Danube Cycle Path. Lots of route options here, what appears to be a well maintained trail, but no really good options (read: major airports) that I noticed to fly into and out of for the prescribed distance. A benefit, though, Germany would also be a new destination for me.

Specifically left out of consideration were Portugal/Spain (heading there soon, don't want a repeat destination), and France (saved for an almost inevitable honeymoon).

Anyone have any opinions on the listed options, or know of anything else that fits into my criteria that I've missed? Also taking input on telling me I am crazy, or suggesting a vintage bike that is more capable of touring than my Peugeot PH10 and lighter than my Le Tour III...

Doug64

Amsterdam is an excellent place to end a tour. Better yet there is an Ibis motel about a mile from Schiphol, and if you have time to visit Amsterdam the shuttle will take you to the train station beneath the airport. We used it 4 years ago and plan on ending our present tour there in a month.

If you lived in Prague, you know that roads in CZ do not have shoulders. There are hardly any bike route of any distance that does not use roads at times. We left Prague 2 days ago, and it was all on roads, and very hilly. I think there is a good bet that the route to Vienna will not be solely on off-road trails. You might want to do a little research on that.

You might want to look at part of the Rhine Route, ending in Amsterdam. A few years ago we went from Lisbon to Amsterdam, and used the Rhine from Switzerland to Amsterdam. Depending on the route you take, be prepared for some unsurfaced sections.

Good luck and enjoy!

chasm54

Brussels to Amsterdam is great, easy, but maybe a bit short? If you want to start/finish near major airports and like the idea of Germany, have a look at Eurovelo route 2. It runs from the North Sea to Moscow, but the section from Berlin to Warsaw might interest you. Well mapped/signposted as far as Poznan (you'll need mapreading skills from Poznan to Warsaw), loads of places to stay (and interesting cities to visit) nice.

As far as bikes are concerned, vintage (1980s) Raleigh tourers can usually be picked up in the UK for small money, but I'm less familiar with the US or continental european market. Even if you're travelling light I'd recommend finding something you can fit a rack to, personally I hate riding with a backpack for any length of time.

MichaelW

I can recommend Slovenia, a bit of everything from easy riding to Alpine challenge

Scummer

If you like a bit more challenging rides with a few climbs thrown in, I'd recommend Bodensee-Koenigssee Radweg.
Lake Constance to Königssee Cycleway

The view of the Alps is really something and the whole bike path should be nicely marked with signs.
Tegernsee is a very pretty lake with some good hiking. Koenigssee is consdered the most beautiful lake in Germany.

mev

I'll suggest adding Tbilisi to Yerevan to the consideration list.

Spent two weeks this summer, mostly in Armenia but starting and ending in Tbilisi. Friendly people, ok traffic, interesting sights and historic areas, hills, knowledge of Russian helpful.

Doug64

Also check out the route from Copenhagen to Berlin. It meets a lot of your criteria and is a nice ride, about 360 miles.

Doug64

Most of Eurovelo Route 2 from Berlin to Poznan is not on dedicated bike paths. Most of the route in Germany and Poland is on small secondary roads, norrower
than most bike paths we have here in the US.

Germany's Route D3 and EVR 2 were the same route for the German portion. The roads in Poland do not have shouders, and traffic can get tricky in the larger towns. However, the drivers always gave us a lot of room when they could. We turned south just west of Poznan, but I woudn't envision much difference further east.

If this is your SO's first tour, I'd make it as easy and enjoyable as possible. Think of it as "her tour", not yours. She may just want to do again

Caretaker

Bordeaux to Toulouse or vice versa mostly along the Canal du Midi.

fietsbob

Danube has river cruising excursion boats to take you back to your start , so you can ride downstream ,
say Passau to Vienna or Budapest .


Bringing my own bike, Shiphol AMS is a good entry . you can ride away on the surface , same bike paths the employees ride
to get to work.

or put Your stuff on the Train, the National Rail Station is in the lower Level, directly under the Airport ..

Philly Tandem

Have you toured before? It's not clear from your post.

For a fun, easy and interesting week of bike touring in Europe I don't think you can do better than the traditional Danube route from Passau, Germany, to Vienna. I've done it many times, and it's always a good ride. The route is almost entirely on dedicated bike path or low-to-no-traffic farm roads. You pass lots of interesting historical and cultural sites. There are trains and riverboats that parallel most of the route (as fietsbob noted), offering plenty of bail-out options in bad weather, etc. And the infrastructure and amenities targeted solely to bike tourists have to be experienced to be believed. Having the world-class city of Vienna as the carrot at the end of the stick makes this ride even better.

You can easily do this tour flying in and out of Munich. From MUC airport it's an easy one- or two-train ride to Passau. Either take the S-bahn train from the airport to the main Munich station, where you can catch a regional train to Passau, or ride your bike about 20 minutes directly from the airport to the nearby town of Freising, where the train to Passau passes through. (The two-train option is longer, but a bit more relaxing, as you get on both trains at the start of their route and have less pressure to board at an interim station.) From Vienna you can take a number of train routings back to Munich, most which transfer in Salzburg (a great city to visit in it's own right... plan to stay over night there).

My wife and I rode from outside Prague to near the Austrian border back in 2004, just when the Greenway and other Czech routes were getting started. I wouldn't recommend it for a newbie tourist. The Czech Republic has plenty of hills, for one.

Have you looked at self-guided tours? These are very popular in Europe, and there are many options available. You get a rental bike, they transfer your luggage from hotel to hotel, and they book your rooms each night. Other than that you are on your own, and the price is usually not too bad. Austria Radreisen is one of the big tour operators on the Danube. That way you wouldn't have the hassle of bringing your own bikes. While many Austrian and German trains readily accept bikes, many do not, and it's a lot easier to travel by train without a bike (and faster, as the bike-carrying routes are usually the slower regional trains).

jefnvk

Thanks all, I've got some good other ideas to chew over for the next few days!

As far as Prague, this is the route I was specifically looking at: The Greenways It seemed to be on par with the route between Amsterdam and Brussels, where the road portions were at least on little utilized roads, but as with so many other bike routes, the details are lacking.

We have not. There will be a couple weekend trips before we get to this, but it is part of the reason I am trying to keep it light and easy, without too much difficult biking and more or less a credit-card ride to cut down on luggage. We've done a few 50ish mile day charity rides without issue.



I will take that under much consideration, as that sounds like an amazing ride and Tiblisi has been on my go-to list, although I can absolutely guarantee my other half does not share my enthusiasm in such, let's say rustic, destinations

jefnvk

Probably is to many on this site, but we're looking for something not too crazy. That particular route, with maybe a daytrip or two off the side, fits into a fairly "touristy" timeline, and comes out to a bit over 250 miles. We want the bikes to be a large part of the trip, but not the sole focus. I've done buses, trains, boats, cars, and planes around Europe, think of it more as a new way to get around, as this will be trip #12 to Europe for me and things are starting to get a bit repetitive. As it is a shorter trip, as is anything I am going to be able to do in the foreseeable future, not running up against a wall or weather is also a concern, I want to make sure it is something we can complete if not everything goes out way without having to pedal through gales or such because we didn't leave any extra time. I can deal with pedaling too fast and having to spend an extra day in Brussels or Amsterdam easier than finding myself in a town 3/4 of the way through and having to figure out how to get to the capital by train to make a flight

randallr

We just got back from France and I'll tell ya, the Loire valley is just fabulous. Angers to Blois.

DonValley

Tons of dreary weather in a Belgian spring. Cold and wet.

jobtraklite

The Donau Radweg is the holy grail of touring cyclists. If this is your first European bike tour, I would highly recommend it because it has the most highly developed infrastructure for cyclists and even a AAA style guide book in English. I could recommend other even more interesting long distance bike paths in Austria, but I would save them for later.

Somehow or another, you don't seem to like the Munich, Salzburg, or Vienna airports. If it were me, I would fly into Salzburg (one of the easiest airports I've ever seen for getting into and out of by bike), bike the Tauern Bike Path to Passau, and then do the standard Danube Passau - Wien thing. Then, if you don't want to fly back out of Wien (another airport easy to bike into and out of), you could take an intercity train back to Salzburg. That would mean roughly 240 miles of the best biking in the world. In fact, you could fly into Munich, take the train to Salzburg, then train back to Munich.

I could also suggest you begin by biking the Isar Radweg from near the Munich airport to Deggendorf, Germany. The Isar has its source in the Austrian Alps, flows through Munich, passes near the Airport, and connects with the German portion of the Donau Radweg at Deggendorf. However, this would be about 300 miles, more than your specification.

You will find probably more than you want to know about bicycling in Austria here.

jobtraklite

I did the Passau - Wien - Passau "bike and barge" tour in August of 2014 and highly recommend it, especially for a first timer. I had done Passau - Wien twice before where I organized everything myself, but still enjoyed the bike and barge. You don't even have to pack you panniers each day, nor worry about returning to the start.

As fietsbob says, there are two choices. One to Wien, entirely in Austria, and the other to Budapest. I selected Wien because it offered more biking and less cruising. The bike and barge tours use older, smaller cruise ships, carrying roughly 80 passengers, than the enormous, luxurious modern ones. But still extremely nice and great food.

jefnvk

Not so much that I don't like them, just that I had started looking into flight availability combined with bike luggage costs and they didn't pan out so well with the carriers that were more friendly towards bikes. That is not to say that won't change in the next few months as I get more plans nailed down, though. Right now, I am fairly set on BA out of YYZ (Toronto) as my standard, it seems to offer the best total value. No decisions have been made with any certainty yet, I'll definitely check out that link!

FWIW, a dedicated bike trail would suit the girlfriend best, it is pushing me slightly in that direction.

jefnvk

That does indeed look fabulous! I was sad to miss the Loire when I visited France a few years back, it'll definitely be on the itinerary for the aforementioned inevitable trip in the next two years!