Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.Froggy
11-09-08, 09:52 PM
My wife, a pal and I just recently finished an 8 day tour cycling through Tuscany. This was our first vacation cycling tour. About 35 miles a day, lots of light hills but with a few biggies (one was a 10k climb, long but awesome). My wife and I are intermediate cyclists, we usually like rides of around 20 to 30 miles with an occasional 50 miler here and there.
We booked through Bike Tours Direct - an American booking agency for European tour operators. We selected these guys mainly because they were a lot cheaper than the other tour companies we looked at. The european tour company we ended up with was EuroBike. I like these guys - we had a husband and wife team as our guides (our tour was guided, but they also offer self-guided). One person would ride with us while the other transported our luggage and set up lunch and things of that sort.
The hotels were not luxurious though a couple came close, but they were all nice and clean. They were all interesting - one was a medival castle. The rooms were tiny by American standards (the bathrooms were even smaller), but perfectly acceptable. Breakfast and dinner was included in the trip price, and we all agreed to let the guides arrange our lunches as well for an extra fee. Breakfast was Italian continental, which inlcudes all sorts of stuff, depending on where in Tuscany we were at the time. You would get three different kinds of sausage, boiled eggs, bread, fruit, pastrys etc. Wonderful. The dinners were equally good - no bad meals at all and some were inspired! And wine? Well, the Tuscans have had a lot of practice with wine, you know.
We had a good mix of people - on our trip we had three Americans (us), four Canadians, four Germans and two Australians. Everyone was friendly, eager to like and be liked in return. We meshed well.
This was perhaps the best trip I've ever taken. We started in Montecatini Terme (about haflway between Pisa and Florence) and biked west to Pisa ( with a stop in Vinci and Lucca). From Pisa, east through Casciana Termna, Sienna, San Gimignano and lots of cool Tuscan towns and stops in between. We ended in Florence.
I can recommend Tuscany and I can recommend using the Bike Tours Direct people. I don't have any experience with any of the other tours they offer, but after my Tuscany trip, I won't hesitiate to try another one.
We booked through Bike Tours Direct - an American booking agency for European tour operators. We selected these guys mainly because they were a lot cheaper than the other tour companies we looked at. The european tour company we ended up with was EuroBike. I like these guys - we had a husband and wife team as our guides (our tour was guided, but they also offer self-guided). One person would ride with us while the other transported our luggage and set up lunch and things of that sort.
The hotels were not luxurious though a couple came close, but they were all nice and clean. They were all interesting - one was a medival castle. The rooms were tiny by American standards (the bathrooms were even smaller), but perfectly acceptable. Breakfast and dinner was included in the trip price, and we all agreed to let the guides arrange our lunches as well for an extra fee. Breakfast was Italian continental, which inlcudes all sorts of stuff, depending on where in Tuscany we were at the time. You would get three different kinds of sausage, boiled eggs, bread, fruit, pastrys etc. Wonderful. The dinners were equally good - no bad meals at all and some were inspired! And wine? Well, the Tuscans have had a lot of practice with wine, you know.
We had a good mix of people - on our trip we had three Americans (us), four Canadians, four Germans and two Australians. Everyone was friendly, eager to like and be liked in return. We meshed well.
This was perhaps the best trip I've ever taken. We started in Montecatini Terme (about haflway between Pisa and Florence) and biked west to Pisa ( with a stop in Vinci and Lucca). From Pisa, east through Casciana Termna, Sienna, San Gimignano and lots of cool Tuscan towns and stops in between. We ended in Florence.
I can recommend Tuscany and I can recommend using the Bike Tours Direct people. I don't have any experience with any of the other tours they offer, but after my Tuscany trip, I won't hesitiate to try another one.