Charming towns, windmills, luscious grey North Sea shrimp, and more types of beer than you can imagine, are offered throughout the trip. But the real bond between these lands is the extraordinary respect and consideration shown to cyclists. Bicycle paths abound, countless commerces cater to cyclists, and travel by bike is a way of life (even when the terrain isn’t flat – you’re in for a bit of a surprise on that score). Come play in the lands that our metaphorical magic carpets love above all...
Tour Details
Duration
16 Days/15 Nights
Location
Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Denmark
Season
July
Tour Type
Road Touring
Nearest City
Brussels - Frankfurt; Copenhagen
Physical Condition Required
Good
Destination(s)
Across Luxembourg, Luxembourg Denmark Flanders/Ardennes, Belgium Rhine Valley, Germany
Distance Traveled
Varies Day to Day
Fully Guided
Yes
Guest Capacity
19
Support Vehicles
Local Rail Lines - No Sag Wagon
Bike Rentals Available
Yes
Bike Brands
Bikes are custom-built, 21-speed road tourers, designed for the biking that is done.
Accommodations
All hotels (and sleeping berths on overnight trains) are included in the cost of the trip.
Blue Marble bypasses chain hotels in favor of family-run inns: pretty in the country, central in the towns. A 17th century courtyard is preferred to an in-room TV.
Transportation to Start Site
Please Contact Blue Marble
Dining
Breakfast (continental) is included, except on overnight trains. It is generally taken at the hotel. Snore.
Most dinners are also included. You are on your own for dinner (and its expense) two nights per “trip week”.
Included dinners may be taken in a group, or you may dine on your own, or in smaller “sub-groups”, with suggestions offered by the coordinator. On nights when you prefer one of these latter options, funds will be distributed sufficient to permit a wide selection of restaurants.
Meals are special events, and a focus of the trips, especially in the Latin countries. Choice is never lacking. But Blue Marble pride themselves on their ability to show local cuisines, often different from anglo-American tradition. “Picky” eaters, or those with special diets which exclude food types or groups, may find this focus tiresome. And since special diets are rare in Latin Europe, hosts are surprised by them. Complex dishes may contain some food you wish to avoid, hidden as a seasoning. Chefs who take pride in their creations are not only unwilling (or unable) to remove the offending ingredient, but can be unwilling to even discuss the recipe! Fortunately, the flexibility of the meal program allows you to retreat to a pizza place if the cultural experience becomes oppressive.
About Liquor
Guides showcase regional wines and beers. Guests pay for their own drinks.
Rates
$4,495.00per personCurrency Converter (Rates shown are in US Dollars. Rates and terms are subject to change.)
Additional Rate Info
Optional Private Single Room Supplement: $695 See Blue Marble's website for Canadian and Euro prices.
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Tour Itinerary
Days 1-3: Road Biking: Belgian Flanders Meet in beautiful Brugge, Belgium’s “Venice of the North”. Cycle through farms and out to the ocean. Then spend the evening sipping red Flanders ales in cheery pubs, popping the famous local chocolates, or cruising the flower-bedecked canals.
Canals are again the theme for the next ride. Past the windmills which once drained the undersea polders, and along tow-paths lined with massive trees planted by King Leopold. Stop for a coffee at a café by a lock, or sip a fruit beer in front of an impressive brick town hall. Night in stately Ghent: Brugge without the crowds.
Days 4-6: Road Biking: The Ardennes (Belgium * Luxembourg) A train carries you to Rochefort, in the Ardennes, whose trappist abbey brews Belgium’s greatest beer. Visit the Grottes de Han, underground caverns so massive that you go in by streetcar and come out by boat. Battle of the Bulge battle sites abound. Stop by Houffalize, where gnomes run a brewery, using the piney Ardennes spring water. Or at least you think they are gnomes if you drink enough of the beer.
Cross Luxembourg in a day, through the Valley of the Seven Châteaux. One is a ruin that used to belong to local notable Atilla the Hun. No one discounted Luxembourg when he was running the show!
Days 6-8: Road Biking: The Mosel Valley (Germany) Reach Germany on Thursday, for two nights on the banks of the Mosel. Trier proudly proclaims itself Europe’s oldest city, based on its Roman past (but in that case, how could it pre-date Rome?). Delicious riesling wines compliment Germany’s most interesting cuisine.
Down the valley. Vineyards cover every inch of arable land, and much that looks like it isn’t. Pedal through the wine towns of Neumagen, Bernkastel and Traben-Trarbach. Bernkastel’s tiny “Doktor” vineyard, the valley’s most prestigious, was so named because of the good it did you to drink its wine. It still does. Saturday afternoon sees you on the banks of the Rhine.
Days 9-12: Road Biking: Jutland Head out from Odense, and train to Fredericia, so hidden by grass-planted fortifications that it once escaped attack because its enemy couldn’t find it. May you fare better!
A three-day cycle starts along the Vejlefjord (yes, a fjord in Denmark). Jelling, symbol of ancient Denmark, is where Gorm the Elder and son Harald Bluetooth federated the Norse kingdom and buried a lot of stuff, including the queen. Runic stones abound, Wends maraud, and the whole business is somehow linked to early Christianity, at least if you believe that Christ was a Viking.
Across the moor to Silkeborg, heart of the wooded Lake District, for a night in a country krø, the typical thatch-roofed Danish inn.
Then by way of lakes and lanes to lively Århus, home to Scandinavia’s longest cathedral, a royal “summer cottage”, great night life, and an ersatz 200-year-old town plunked down in a city park.
Days 12-15: Road Biking: Fyn and the Islands Back to Odense, where you first met the group. Another fun night town, and birthplace to the still-revered Hans C.
Three days of biking the country’s most delightful lands. Langeland, Ærø and Fyn are island homes to fairy tale fishing villages garlanded with poppies. Visit 13th century churches, spooky Viking burial mounds, water and wind mills, quaint manor houses, and sea-faring museums. Castles dot the landscape and beaches line the route. Delights abound and distances are never great on these tiny paradises where fantasy flies. Can you tell Blue Marble likes it here?
Days 15-16: Road Biking: Copenhagen To the capital for a night. There’s too much to do, so suit your tastes: palaces, ancient ruins, canals, museums... Visit Tivoli, the world’s first amusement park. Stroll pedestrian streets and enjoy a multitude of street artists. Christiania reuses a military base as a fascinating experiment in communal living.
The ’burbs host “Louisiana”, a modern art museum/sculpture garden with a view to Sweden. Helsingör castle was home to Hamlet, the only person Blue Marble's heard of who did not have a good time in Denmark.
A celebratory smörgåsbord (that’s not how they spell it, but it’s unrecognizable in Danish) and a salute to Erik the Red before heading off. Or was he Norwegian?
COMPLIMENTARY VISITOR GUIDES
Click on any visitor guide below to request a free copy.
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