Our Philosophy

We create our own website (it shows, right?). But at least you don’t pay for expensive marketing to people who don’t go on trips.  If you go, you’ll find the funds you gave us used for your trip!

We don’t sink a fortune in hotels, ’cause you don’t spend much time in them.  We focus on the meals, the bikes, researching our routes and the towns and villages where we spend our evenings… the important things!  And we shop well.

Our travel is independent and flexible.  You aren’t bungied to our idea; we help you live your own.  Our trips are small, generally 10 to 15, so it’s easy to be autonomous.

Yet we liberate you from the hassles of solo travel:  finding a room at night, getting on the right train, figuring out the best bike routes to follow or the most interesting villages to visit.  We offer plenty of adventure, but not of the bed bug or big truck variety.

We even help you reach and leave your trip.  “Access Packages” are available if you want them, so that you don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out where (or what) Finse is.

We know the wines on the list, the trains which allow bikes, the little hotels with good showers, where the bus stop is.... You are free to make the most of your experience:  explore your beautiful surroundings, dine, shop, or chat with your companions over a glass of wine in an out-of-the-way bistro.


The Means (food, lodging…)

We bypass chain hotels in favor of family-run inns:  pretty in the country, central in the towns.  We prefer a 17th century courtyard to an in-room TV.  Our restaurants are characterized by charm and good food, rather than capacity.

We avoid standardization.  We prefer a modest meal followed by a splendid one, to two “averages,” and we accept the dips in the road as the cost of the marvelous peaks.

We use quality transportation.  Our bikes are purpose-built road touring cycles, designed precisely for the use we make of them.  And whether you are on or off a bike, our journeys are interesting and fun.   We travel as the locals do, on trains and boats – not in the cocoon of a charter bus on an industrial autobahn.


Biking

If you are on a bike trip, the bikes (with whom we often become friendly) can be your purpose, or, on the contrary, a means to an end.  The rides are beautiful, and easy or challenging, depending on your goal.  You can even change your mind each day, or skip a day entirely.  There is plenty of time to stop and explore – though never enough.

Our “base routes” start off slowly, for those who haven’t been on a bike since the training wheels came off.  They gradually work up to a daily average of 50 - 70 kilometers (30 - 45 miles).  Distance depends on terrain (if you’re under water, we keep it to about 7 leagues), and on the sights that compete for our attention.  Doing more is always possible:  Trip Coordinators propose long routes for the ambitious, and trips integrate “loop days,” which allow you to do as much (or as little) biking as you please.

We support our cycle routes by following country rail lines, and giving you daily information on how to jump on the train with your bike.  Railway personnel have welcomed aboard more than one sleepy cyclist, seeking nothing more than to forget prowess at the lunch table, the cycle stowed safely out of sight in the luggage compartment.  These things happen.

This system of back-up has several advantages. 

• It saves you money.  You only pay for it when you use it, and not much even then.  As opposed to paying an extra 30% on top of your trip cost to have some bozo drive around destroying the ozone layer in your name. 
• Your “backup” is not around to spew diesel fumes in your face as you cycle up hills that would have been pleasant but for an excessively cheerful soul leaning out the window of a truck to offer you juice.
• It is less constraining.  You go where you please, when you please, and have back-up where you find yourself, rather than having to ride in circles around the “mother ship” at a compromise pace that is almost certainly not yours.

It also allows you to bring along a “training partner.”   “Training” in this context refers to the vehicle, and not to any particular athletic preparation.  If one of your party cannot be convinced to bike, or even if none of you can be convinced to bike, you are still welcome... our trips show off their surroundings in a special way, and we fully understand the desire to travel as we do, even if you are not interested in the prospect of turning pedals.  Details are here.


Staff

Your trip’s Coordinator serves as a center of information, helping with city orientation, ferreting out special events, calling attention to sights, and sharing hidden pubs and restaurants that guidebooks miss, and that an individual traveller would stumble upon only with the greatest of luck.  We don’t make you do stuff; we help you to do what you please.  And the administrative hassles that inevitably arise are ours to cope with, leaving you the freedom to enjoy your vacation.


Our Favorites

We offer over 40 routes, plus variants and combinations.  The innovative will find a discussion of connecting trips, offered at discounts.

All of the trips are great, but we have a natural preference for the long ones.  They permit an understanding of continental Europe that is unattainable in less time and with less material for comparison.  They have been life-changing experiences for many of our guests, and for us.  We believe this so strongly that we offer extra weeks on favorite itineraries “at cost.”  It’s time you changed jobs anyway.