Machka 

Have any of you cycled all or part of the Rhine Cycling Route?

It is 1230 km long from end to end, and makes its way through 4 countries (The Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland).

https://www.rhinecycleroute.eu/


Did you do it as part of an organised tour (evidently there are quite a few of those) or as an independent tour? Camping or indoor accommodations or both?

Any highlights or recommendations? Websites? Other links?


[HR][/HR]

We are hoping to do some of the Rhine Cycling Route in the near future, and we have acquired a booklet which seems quite good which provides us with maps, directions, etc. for about half the route. So we'll start with that, and see how we go.

Doug64

Hi Machka,

My wife and I rode the Rhine Route from Basel, Switzerland to the border of The Netherlands as part of our route last year. Once we hit the border we headed for Nijmegen, and south into Belgium.

We were self supported, and used a combination of hotels, rooms, and campgrounds. I know you and Rowan are already into this tour, so the following information will not likely be very useful. We ride with a very "loose" schedule. What really helped us do this was my GPS. I had it loaded with Garmin "City Navigator Europe NT". The program has an accurate listing of accommodations in almost any location, including hotels, rooms, and campgrounds. It also saved a lot of time and energy finding the places where we wanted to stay. This allowed us to make plans on a daily basis, and stay on our loose route/schedule.

It is a great ride!

If you want more details, check out our blog site. https://ddlivestrong.blogspot.com/

Ride safe, and enjoy your venture

chrisch

I've cycled all parts of the Rhein Route and it's great fun. There are plenty of campsites along the route. I highly recommend the maps from bikeline, which might also be available in English. Even so, you don't have to read German to use these maps:

https://www.amazon.de/Bikeline-Radtou...4284748&sr=8-3
https://www.amazon.de/bikeline-Radtou...4284748&sr=8-2
https://www.amazon.de/Radtourenbuch-R...4284748&sr=8-1

Most of the route is very nice with an exception around Duisburg, Germany.

Have fun!

fietsbob

Rode the Rhine east bank Levee top path north from Basel CH, to Almost Freiburg,
before an Abrahms battle tank blocked my Path..

Machka 

The map we acquired (another cyclist dropped it off at a campground we stayed in, and the campground manager gave it to us) is one of those Bikeline maps ... seems good so far.

Today was our first real day on the route, heading from the Netherlands to Switzerland. We didn't get very far, but that's OK, we're not in a rush.

ollyisk

I've ridden portions of it and I think you'll absolutely love it. Beautiful valley, and it's pretty easy going.

I'd highly recommend trying to get down to the Danube river and touring southeast (a lot of people start in Passau, Germany and end in Budapest, Hungary). It's on my list of to-dos while I live over here, I've heard nothing but positives about that route from friends who have ridden it.

Machka 

We have finally arrived in the "Romantic Rhine" part of the route. We've been travelling from north to south, and I have to say that the industrial areas of Duisberg and Dusseldorf were not particularly pleasant. We slogged through, but by the time we got to Dormagon, we decided to take a train to a point south of Bonn.

If I were to make a recommendation, it would be to cycle as far as Orsoy ... and then take a train to a point south of Bonn ... and then continue south from there. You won't miss much. Unless, of course, cities and industry is your thing.

We're hoping it will continue to be good all the way to Mainz, and then we'll decide what to do next.

Machka 

For reference purposes, here is another thread about the Rhine Route
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ighlight=rhine


Summing up our experience so far:

-- We are cycling north to south.
-- We started in a town in The Netherlands called Arnhem.
-- Arnhem has a lovely campground. Very nice ... the best we've seen so far. It was a pity to leave.

-- From Arnhem to the border between The Netherlands and Germany, and as far as Orsoy, the cycling was quite pleasant, although there are some longish sections of gravel. It's flat, and perhaps a little bit boring in places, but the waterfowl and barges are entertaining.
-- From Orsoy to Mehlem, the route deteriorates badly. I'd recommend hopping a train in Orsoy and not getting off till Mehlem. Skip Duisburg, Dusseldorf/Neuss, Koln, and Bonn. We struggled through Duisburg and Dusseldorf/Nuess, and then caught a train to Mehlem.

-- There are two campgrounds in Mehlem. There's a really nice, very small, quiet campground (which is where we stayed). But if you're into the "party campground", that's just a bit further south (1 km) of the really nice quiet campground.
-- From Mehlem to Namedy, the route is really nice. That's about 30 km of beautiful scenery and lovely little villages.

-- From Namedy to about Oberwerth (south of Koblenz) the route deteriorates again. More industrial stuff and bad path surfaces ... smooth for a few minutes, round a corner and it's cobbles for quite a while, round a corner and it's gravel for a while, then push the bicycles up and over ramps, then some path broken up by tree roots, then some relatively smooth brick, then more cobbles and more gravel and more broken path. I felt really beat up by the time we got into Koblenz.
-- From Oberwerth southward to near Mainz, however the route improves and the path improves and the scenery improves, and it's actually quite nice. This is where the castles and quaint villages are. If you can't do the whole Rhine Route, I'd recommend doing this bit. It has actually encouraged us to continue cycling rather than packing it in and taking a train to Paris or somewhere.



As for accommodations, we have stayed in the following:

Arnhem - beautiful campground. Wish they were all like that.
Millingen - brand new B&B which is not listed on the route yet. There is also apparently a campground, but we didn't see it.
Xanten - very remote campground with inconvenient tent area (middle of a field, long way from toilet block, and no services in the area - good thing we had some food with us). There is a big youth hostel just outside Xanten, and we tried there, but we would have had to book ahead.
Orsoy - hotel - nice but rushed us out in the morning because of a booking mixup on their part.
Langst Kierst - temporary campground presumably set up for the season. Not bad, but not a place we'd want to spend any length of time.
Feste Zons - campground on the east side of the river ... horrible. Mostly permanent caravans, small sloped tent area, miles from toilet block, and part of the tent area became a party area till about 3:30 am. Also noise from neighbouring town was very disruptive, loud music, screaming people, etc..
(Caught the train then to Mehlem ... enough of the city stuff!)
Melhem - lovely, quiet, small campground. We liked it so much, we spent 4 days there! It was an oasis. But really ... what's with the firecrackers in surrounding town areas and along the Rhine most nights?
Bad Breisig - hotel with view of Rhine. That was quite nice and Bad Breisig is a scenic little town.
Koblenz (or actually Guls) - hotel with view of Mosel. That was also reasonably nice, and we might have stayed there two nights if they had room
Oberspay - campground ... not bad, but wouldn't recommend spending a Saturday night there. They claim to be a very quiet campground, but allow groups to drink and carry on till all hours on a Saturday night, and the disco across the river blares music until about 2 am so loud you can hear the words. Other nights might be better.

In fact, from our experience, I'd recommend staying in a hotel on a Saturday night rather than a campground.

Machka 

More updates to my website about our travels. Much of the information above in much greater detail.


https://www.machka.net/RTW_2012/RTW_Europe_Main_2012.htm

ollyisk

Don't tell anyone from Wiesbaden I said this, but you definitely picked the right side of the Rhein to be on. The trail on that side of the river is much nicer than that of the trail on the Wiesbaden side of the river. Glad you didn't take the train because the river is absolutely lovely through there.

Machka 

Well, we've just made a couple of discoveries today.

Today we took a cruise boat ferry up the river two towns so that we could experience the river from the water, and so that we could see a bit of what is between here and Mainz. That was a lovely experience! We stopped in the town up the river, had a little stroll around, then returned to the ferry.

And we discovered that:

1. these ferries run between Koln and just outside Mainz ... that's about an 8-9 hour trip. There are likely other ferries that run in other parts of the Rhine too.

2. they take bicycles.

We could have skipped a whole lot of the unpleasant stuff and taken a ferry up or down the Rhine. And these ferries make stops all along the way, so if we wanted to explore a town (like we did today), we could.

I'd highly recommend looking into ferries/cruises rather than cycling the entire route. Take a folding bicycle so that you can use trains easily as well if you want. Take the ferry from one scenic area to another, skip all the industrial stuff, and when you dock in a scenic area, either do a little day ride, or maybe cycle up or down river to the next town and then get back on the ferry. Less stress, more enjoyable.

Machka 

We took the train to Luxembourg city today, on a route that mainly followed the Mosel River, and having now seen the Mosel in more detail (we rode along it a little way when we were in Koblenz), we think that's the better route. It's beautiful! That's a option for a future tour.

Machka 

I've been loading photos and I've got about half the Rhine Cycle Route photos loaded ... from Arnhem, NL to Mehlem, Germany ...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/machka-...7630913118566/

Hopefully I'll get to the other half of the route over the next few days.


(There are also a handful more recent photos of Switzerland in the set as well)

becnal

Indeed, the Mosel is one of Germany's best bike routes. Gorgeous riding.