Touring - I'm Moving to Germany!!!

Hi y'all....

I am pretty much guaranteeing that I am moving to Germany this late July. My husband got an exchange program deal and we are going for a year. I will be in a small town 2 hours NE of Frankfurt. Now, I want to TOUR to Europe. There are a lot of options obviously. In September I would like to do a 3 week tour. Suggestions?

Rhine - sounds busy and VERY flat - I do like hills sometimes, this could be boring.
France - wow...that sounds great! Do I need to speak French to tour there?
Czech Rep - cheap

How easy it to find camp sites? Are they well marked?

Check out http://adfc.de for biking in Germany. It's in German, but there is a link to another site that is in English. Southern Germany, around Stuttgart, has lots more hills than the Rhine area. Of course, the further south you're going, the closer to the Alps you get. That's really hilly!

France - no opinion. Holland - you could get by with only English. A lot of the people in Holland speak better english than some Americans. No kidding.

Czech Republic - no ideas there either.

Good luck and enjoy your time there. There's lots to do, see and experience.

Contact Nathank on the forums. He's in Munich. He seems to favor Lago de Garda in northern Italy a lot, and the cycling in Italy is excellent.

Koffee

Hey... what's with all you Portlanders moving to Germany? :D Yes, nathank used to hail from Portland too.

Definitely PM Nathank, he's full of knowledge on that part of the world. I may even be joining you in a few years' time.

Germany is a lot like Oregon, same kind of weather, same kind of terrain, same variety of people. That's why.

sweet!!!

2 hours NE of Frankfurt... and Frankfurt is about 2.5 hours from where i am (Munich)...

as to touring... i'm assuming you're meaning road rather than mountain? i'm actually mostly a mountain biker (Guide for the German Alpine club) although i road ride every once in a while.


Rhine - sounds busy and VERY flat - I do like hills sometimes, this could be boring.
this is probably the most popular biking route in Germany, maybe in Europe... i've actually never ridden it although i plan to whenever my sister gets back over her (well, she'll be here in June but she's pregnant now)... but it is relatively flat but with rolling hills, so i don't think "boring" is accurate. it is a signed maintained bike path with bike hotels and hostels and camping all along the way. just get on the bike and ride until you want to stop and then find a hotel or restaurant or coffe shop or beer garten alnog the way...


France - wow...that sounds great! Do I need to speak French to tour there?
again, i've only mountain biked in France, but it is VERY popular for road touring. from where you will be it is at least a day trek by either car/train. in France you can get by w/o French but it always helps (my last trip in June last year i was with an American and we both spoke no French plus a German friend who has very limited French and no problem - in restuarants/hotels/camping and tourist stuff it's no problem)


Czech Rep - cheap
never cycled there, but yes, it is cheap! i think compared to Germany/France/Holland much less infrastructure and fewer signed routes/maps... but if you were doing an extended tour you would save money as your daily expenses for food/hotel would be almost half that of Germany/France.

another great possibility that is definitely NOT flat is Switzerland although it is EXPENSIVE... just rough order of expensive: Switzerland, France, Germany/Holland, Austria, Italy... then Czech, Poland, other "est" countries

i think if i were you i'd start with a week trip on the Rhine and see how it goes. then you could look into something like France/Czech or in the mountains (one of my ideas was to ride the Rhine south so uphill and into the mountains in Switzerland so you get a combo of heavily supported relatively flat touring plus more rural/rugged mountain riding and then you get to ride back downhill!)

---> oh wait i just saw you want to do a 3-week tour in Sept... well, maybe you could do a 3-4 day tour in July/Aug on the Rhine and then one of the others? in Germany staying in normal "bike" hotels and eating in restaurants you'll be spending about €40-60/day... Switzerland about 30% more, Czech maybe 40% less (or cheaper if you stay in sub-hotels) --- camping and self-cooking is naturally MUCH cheaper, but requires more gear to pack.


Germany is a lot like Oregon, same kind of weather, same kind of terrain, same variety of people. That's why.
hmmm... not so sure i'd agree directly:
same kind of weather:
sort of but not really - Portland is cloudy/rainy 8 months and then sunny/dry 4 months and Germany is colder in winter with more snow (i'm sitting in my girlfriend's apartment here south of munich and she just went for a road ride and can't ride uphill b/c ALL the roads in the area are STILL snow-covered so she's doing a "flat" road-ride which sucks as she has a race next Sunday and need some hill-training) and then much more variable weather...

same kind of terrain:
well, mountains yes, but again different - the Alps are higher and more rugged and not volcanic like the Cascades. (better for rock climbing)

same variety of people:
i guess you could say that. Germany has more variety i think, but Portland people are more laid back. both have lots of interest in Outdoors, although in Portland "outdoors" is a major culture/lifetstlye whereas in Munich it is a LARGE sub-culture.

but back to the original subject: if i can do anything to help out let me know. at present i still have a lot of time as i am 3 weeks post-OP from my ACL surgery (as of yesterday i am allowed to walk w/o crutches and tomorrow i start on the stationary bike!!!)

and i agree that the ADFC is a good source.

Thanks for all your help, Nathank.

I'm thinking a good route might be to start along the Rhine, then veer off and maybe up the Mosel area to Trier. I'm trying to coordinate my tour with someone coming from the US so starting from Frankfurt is the most reasonable idea (direct Lufthansa flight from PDX to Frankfurt).

The city I am moving to is Gottingen - 130,000 people with a big university. My Deutch is, well, POOR! I can say bier and biergarten. The first month that I am there (August) I will be doing a summer school as part of the university to at least learn some German. Then I plan to do the tour, and then go on vacation with my husband (thanks Portland for the license!) to Italy in October. He's a non-bicycle tourist so we will be doing the train and walking. Then in November I will enroll in a Goethe Institute language program for 2 months. Hopefully after a year I will at least be semi-fluent.

As for work, you might ask? Well, I know unemployment is really high there, but maybe there is an under-the-table part-time job I could do, though I have plenty of ideas with how to handle all my free time. This will be like a year long vacation for me.....except I will need to be a good "wife" and do the cooking and cleaning. Plenty of time to play though!

I hope you are healing well!! I was reading the forums a while back when I was saddened to hear about your ACL tear. Ewww...that's my worst nightmare.

take care

Goettingen is a great place to learn German. It's probably the only place in Germany that doesn't speak with a strong local dialect (I worked in Germany for 5 years and learned it fluently). Unfortunately the landscape is less interesting there than in the south, altho the Rhein Valley is nice. Email if you have any questions. Gute Reise!

I've lived in Germany on and off for 10 years. There are a lot of excellent bike routes. The best stretch of the Rhine is between Mainz and Koblenz. (Mainz is about 50 km from Frankfurt, so follow the last bit of the Main Radweg (River Main Bike Path) and pick up the Rhein Radweg at Mainz. The best bike guides to touring in Germany are the 'Bikeline' series published by Esterbauer Verlag. Any decent German bookshop usually has a fairly large selection of them. Even though they are in German a non German speaker will find them of great use as the maps are crystal clear. There is a list of hotels for each town on a given route at the back of each book. Routes you should consider trying are the Weser Radweg, Die Romantische Strasse, Main Radweg and the Donau (Danube) Radweg. The Bikeline guide to the last one is available in English as this is the most popular bike route in Europe. I think you can get it from Amazon.co.uk. By the way the Rhine route may be fairly flat (it is after all a river valley route) but boring it isn't. Good luck with your touring.

i am from germany - moved to the states 7 years ago.
i used to live in the southern part - about 20 miles east of stuttgart and have travelled pretty much every country in europe.
as for the biking:
germany: southern germany is the best, especially black forest and the alpes.
france: france has some great areas to bike, there are many very rural areas, especially further south. you could bike there all day and maybe see 1 car.
italy: is personally my favorite. for biking tuscany is great or if you would like a little warmer temps, go south to sicilly. italians are the funnest and friendliest people you will find in europe.
as for eastern europe - i can't tell you, because i have only been to the former east germany and russia. that was several years ago of course, but back then i would have never traveled any of these countries by bike.
my wife and i will go on an rv trip this summer, following the tour around for a while and then head to tuscany for some more biking. would love to give you some more input after our trip.
BEWARE: August-Sept is vacation season in europe. this means EVERYBODY is on vacation - traffic is horrible in most tourist destinations and you would not want to be cought in this, believe me.

greetings,
mk

Thanks everyone for all the great info. I'm still up in the air about where we will be touring, seeing as I need to coordinate with my friend who is impossible to nail down. I know it will be September, which is pretty busy tourist-wise, but can't do much about that other than avoid the big roads.

First month I am Germany in August I will be taking a summer school class to learn at least the basics of German. Hopefully I can get a few words in my noggin for use.