This page last updated on: August 21, 2006
Bicycle Touring in Europe: What you Should Know
Part I
On this Page:
Bicycling
in Europe: How much will it cost?
Why Bicycle in Europe?
On related pages:
When
to Go? By Commercial Group? Or, by Personal
Tour?
Bring Your
Own Bike or Rent or Buy? What Kind of Bike? Customizing Your Bike?
Trains and
Bicycles.
Maps,
Guidebooks, Hotels, and Tourist Site Information Sources
What
Should You Pack? Security, Traffic, and Safety.
How far
will you ride?
Best European Cycling
Trips: Author's ratings, and when, where, and how to do them.
Bicycling in Europe: How much will it cost?
A bicycle vacation in Europe need not cost you more, and may cost you less, than a vacation near home. Or, it can be a luxurious splurge. Your total cost per day of between $10 and $600 (!) will depend upon the style (and to some extent, location) of your trip, as the following table amply illustrates (one Euro € has been about one US dollar $ - plus or minus 10%):
|
Type
|
Example*
or Category |
Approximate € Daily Cost Per Person,
trips of 5 to 7 days, 2003
|
|
| France or Italy** | Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland** | ||
|
Commercial Guided Tours
|
Note: Many, many bicycle tour com-panies exist. The following are examples, not recommendations. | ||
| Luxury (castle hotels, top restaurants): | |||
|
Butterfield and Robinson |
$ 600
|
$ 600
|
Luxury (includes most meals): |
Back Roads, Club Toscana |
$ 520 - 580
|
$ 450
|
| Moderate (moderate hotels, usually does not include lunches): | |||
Moderate plus: |
Ciclismo Classico (Italy), Eurobike, Gerhard's |
$ 350-400
|
$ 290
|
|
Classic Adventures |
$ 300-325
|
|
|
|
Easy Rider |
$ 265
|
|
| Economy, usually a European-based tour company (riding with nationals of the local country) or a U.S. non-profit (basic to standard hotels, no lunches): | |||
|
Eurocycle Austria, Cycletours Holland, |
$100
|
$ 100
|
|
Commercial Self-Guided Tours with route guides, baggage transfers, no meals*** , per person |
|||
|
Club Toscano | $ 320 - 400 | |
Moderate, the author believes, but has not confirmed, that these companies typically use local "economy providers" |
Discover France, Pack and Pedal Europe | $ 100 - 200 | |
Economy |
Eurocycle Austria, Cycletours Holland, others in Austria, Germany, Holland, France |
$ 80
|
$ 80
|
|
Self-Organized Tours, using
panniers. All entries exclude capital cities, such as Paris,
Venise, or Amsterdam, which may cost double the prices below. Per
Person |
|||
Hotels , one-half of the double room rate. |
Castle Hotels - Top Luxury |
$ 75 - 150
|
$ 60 - 100
|
| Moderate Hotels or B&Bs |
$ 35 - 50
|
||
| Inexpensive Hotels or B&Bs |
$ 15 - 30
|
||
|
Gites, Refuges, Hostels |
$ 5 - 15****
|
|
|
$ 3 - 8†
|
||
|
Restaurants†† |
|||
| Breakfast |
$ 3 - 10
|
||
| Lunch or Dinner - *** rated |
$ 100 - 130
|
||
| Lunch or Diner - * rated |
$ 50 - 100
|
||
| moderate restaurant |
$ 25 - 50
|
||
| inexpensive restaurant or pizzaria |
$ 12 -25
|
||
| fast food chain |
$ 6 - 10
|
||
| Self-prepared breakfast |
$ 1 - 3
|
||
| Picnic or self-cooked meal††† |
$ 3 - 15
|
||
|
**For Spain or Austria, prices are about 10% less than Fance or Italy, 10% more than Portugal, Holland or Ireland. For longer trips of 9 to 10 days, prices are usually less by 10 - 15 % per day. ***Inexpensive meal plans often are available for these tours. ****Additional $ 10 - 20 total per person for dinner and breakfast. †Higher priced campgrounds have amenities, such as swimming pools; it may be possible to camp for nothing by asking permission from local land owners. †† Includes one less-expensive glass of wine (except breakfast) †††On the less expensive side, for example, bread and cheese, or pasta and sauce. In the middle: chicken, vegtables, flans, etc. On the more expensive side, smoked samon, paté, pastries, rasberries, etc. |
|||
Why Bicycle in Europe?
Nothing beats a bicycle tour in Europe—for an active vacation, and to experience landscape and life. You will return home with good health, good feelings, and good memories.
On any bicycle trip, you see, and hear, and smell (!) local people going about their daily lives. Your pace is ideal for taking in the countryside. To see the details of cities and towns, walk your bike, or lock and leave it.
The European landscape is both small-scale and open: "Small scale" means that you ride from one village to the next in a few minutes, and do so on minor roads. Tourist sights, accomodations, and restaurants lie close together.
"Open" means not in suburbs, woods or forests. You see distant fields, hills, rivers, lakes and villages. (Only a very few parts of the USA have both these characteristics—small-scale and open—and these parts of the USA do have wonderful biking!).
In addition, by biking in Europe, you gain exposure to cultures: different ways of thinking and feeling, novel food and drink, and local languages (but most Europeans do speak English as a second language).
You encounter art and architecture. Flower-bedecked villages and squares, often in a unified architectural style, are filled with small shops. You visit fabulous monuments and souvenirs from a long past of Celts, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Popes, Cardinals, Kings, and Emperors.
Biking in Europe is comfortable and secure. You ride usuallly on secondary roads almost without pot-holes and traffic. Many tours take you on bike-paths, completely isolated from traffic. Accidents, theft, and other problems are extremely rare—but do please use caution!
Europe is charming. The charm comes out of novelty; a relaxed approach to life; a high priority for beauty and sensual pleasures; and the influence of history: countrysides manicured for centuries, dotted with relics of ages past.
Are you a gourmet, or, a gourmand? Bicycle travelers in Europe eat more of the old-world delicacies they want — at wonderful restaurants, bakeries, and cheese shops — with little chance of gaining weight. That's reason enough to spin those pedals in Europe.
<Continue
to Part II:
When to Go?
By Organized Group? Or, by Personal Tour?>
