The start of a new cycling season in Europe: I collect my bike from my friend’s house near Wesel in the German Ruhr and head south to Aachen where I pick up the Vennbahnweg rail trail and then carry on through the Belgian and French Ardennes to the champagne capital of Reims.
Category: Germany
#106 Austria and Bavaria |335 km: 2,595m ascent|
Second half of the Alps crossing, and on to Munich where my 2022 European cycling trip abruptly ended. The last 30-odd kilometres of the Alpe Adria Cycleway going into Salzburg are fairly ordinary, and so are the next 30-kilometres heading out of Salzburg towards Munich, truth be told, but the other 250-odd kilometres of this…
#93 The Rhine across Holland
A long haul through Germany’s industrial heartland of the Ruhr and a mad dash across the flatlands of north-east Netherlands.
#92 The Middle Rhine
…and now for the best section of the Rhine Cycle Route: Mannheim to Cologne, (more specifically, Mainz to Koblenz is the best).
#91 The Upper Rhine
Finally back in Germany again for another leasurely ride down the magnificant Rhine.
#60 Netherlands North to South
Well there were still 135 km of Elbe left for me to cycle after Hamburg (making 885 km in total: from Melnik in Czechia – where the Vitava joins the Elbe – to the mouth of the Elbe River at Cuxhaven in the Elbe estuary), so I was not finished with the Elbe yet. And…
#59 The Lower Elbe
I have ridden quite a few river and rail trails in Europe by now, and give me the Loire, Moselle, Rhine, Danube, Main (well, maybe not the Main) and Vitova Rivers, as well as the Fennbahnweg rail trail and Nantes-to-Brest and Rhine-to-Rhone canals, over the Elbe any day. Except for the upper section of the…
#58 The Vitava and the Upper Elbe
The 190 km from Melnik in Czechia to Dresden in Germany is by far the best the Elbe has to offer for cyclists. Add in the 110 km along the Vitava River from Prague and you have 300 km of truly idyllic cycling. Just do it!
#55 The German Danube
The Romantische Strasse (“Romantic Way”, as in the Romance architectural period from around 1750 to 1850) is not all it’s cracked up to be, to be honest. It’s just a marketing exercise! They tout it as this simply amaaa…zing cycle way, when it’s really a car route anyway, with a series of bike paths strung…
#54 Germany’s Romantic Way|
The Romantische Strasse (“Romantic Way”, as in the Romance architectural period from around 1750 to 1850) is not all it’s cracked up to be, to be honest. It’s just a marketing exercise! They tout it as this simply amaaa…zing cycle way, when it’s really a car route anyway, with a series of bike paths strung…