Showing posts with label Alsace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alsace. Show all posts
Friday, June 30, 2017
Cycling Holidays in Alsace
A number of outdoor centres, holiday villages and youth hostels in Alsace cooperate to offer holidays across Alsace. You can if you wish help rebuild a mediaeval castle using authentic methods, go canoeing, learn or brush up your French and German, or hike. However the cycling trips would be of more interest to the readers of this blog: cycle touring in the North of Alsace or mountain biking along the Vosges Mountains. Much more information can be found under http://www.aja-tourisme.fr/en. If you looking for a holiday with children or young adults this could well be a solution.
Friday, June 23, 2017
Cycling in Alsace
The French are gradually installing touristic cycle routes across France. For many years if you saw a tourist cyclist in France he or she would be a foreigner. The French either used a rusty ladies bicycle from the 1920s to cycle beret-wearing to the boulangerie pick up a baguette or two, or they wore a helmet, sausage skin shorts and Lycra® tops on a road bike in an attempt to get fit enough to recreate the glory days of Le Tour, when the French won, i.e. sometime ago. French cycle route planning was to issue maps put out by central government showing where it was intended to have cycle routes with no timetable for completion. Alsace was always somewhat of an exception to this as the Germans came over the border to cycle and enjoy a French way of life - very strong coffee, eclairs and vin rouge in an area where many people understand German, Alsace has also benefited from this discovery that cycle tourists are a good source of tourist euros and new routes have had signposting, etc. installed. For many years the only route that was signposted was the Rhine Route on the left bank of the Rhine between the French border in Lauterburg/Lauterbourg and the Swiss border in Basel/Basle/Bâle. Nowadays the Marne Rhine Canal towpath from Strasbourg towards Sarrebourg, the Saar Coal Mines Canal from Gondrexange north towards Saarbrücken, the Alsatian Wine Road Cycle Trail and the Rhone Rhine Canal from Mulhouse to Belfort are well signposted. There is more information on www.cyclinginalsace.com in English. The Alsatian Tourist authorities produce an excellent printed map of Alsace which includes lists of firms offering bicycling holidays and bike hire. Drop a postcard to Comité Régional du Tourisme d'Alsace, 20 A rue Berthe Molly, 68005 Colmar, France or an email to crt(at)tourisme-alsace.com.
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Hire Bikes on the Rhine in Marckolsheim, Alsace, France
The Tourist Information Office in Marckolsheim has stable touring bikes and e-bikes to hire for half a day, a full day or for a week.
Tourist Information: Office de Tourisme** de Marckolsheim et Environs 13 rue du Maréchal Foch, T : 03 88 92 56 98, E: marckolsheim(at)grandried.fr, W: http://www.grandried.fr/en/leisure/bicycle-rentals.htm, Half daily, daily or week long hire €12 per day for adults and €8 per day for children
Tourist Information: Office de Tourisme** de Marckolsheim et Environs 13 rue du Maréchal Foch, T : 03 88 92 56 98, E: marckolsheim(at)grandried.fr, W: http://www.grandried.fr/en/leisure/bicycle-rentals.htm, Half daily, daily or week long hire €12 per day for adults and €8 per day for children
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Bergstrasse Bike Books Newsletter 2009
Seasonal greetings from a chilly Viernheim
Enough has been written or spoken about bad banks, even worse bankers, property crashes, economic plunges, swine ‘flu and other disasters elsewhere so we’re going to ignore them here and concentrate on more pleasant activities.
Our year has been dominated by several cycling breaks but we kicked 2009 off in the Alpes Maritimes, S. France tramping about in deep snow on snowshoes with Space Between, often in brilliant sunshine. A sudden blizzard meant that we spent New Year’s night most comfortably sleeping bagged up on our tour leaders’ floor with other snowshoers after a most jolly evening and dinner party.A couple of days later, after enjoying a post Christmas Marché de Noel in Nice we caught the sleeper back to Strasbourg and arrived home next day.
The next few days were dominated by a deep freeze - temperatures below 0°C for about a month so our car went into hibernation and our neighbour’s cellar flooded. Fortunately we discovered this as water began lapping round our feet in our cellar and for the next few hours it was all hands to the mop as we sought to prevent the waters rising far enough to damage a new freezer and the rather more expensive new boiler. The neighbouring house is unoccupied, opinions vary as to whether they really are still looking after an elderly relative, said to be at death’s door (for more than 4 years), fleeing from justice or abducted by aliens (someone does still collect their post once a week). By the time a phone number was obtained, the flood water was being contained using a borrowed pump on which J had ripped her finger so badly that medical help was required. The neighbour finally showed, installed a new pump in his cellar, apologised for the inconvenience and offered to pay for any damage. We got the floor dry, no damage was sustained to appliances and J’s finger healed quickly.
After that being carless in the cold was compensated for by some excellent winter walking over crisp snow in our nearby hills, until the temperatures finally rose above freezing and SZ (our ancient car) just started without any trouble.
The year then followed its usual pattern with work in house and garden gradually giving way to more cycling. Chance acquisition of an updated maps of our nearby province Rheinland Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) (http://cms.radwanderland.de/) revealed many more cycle routes than we’d suspected. The Eifel hills on the left bank of the Rhine form the northern part of this province and were accessible by train from Mannheim. Our account of this trip, one of three with the theme ‘Weathering summer storms’...) can be accessed in this blog. It was a taste of things to come, the Bodensee was colder and wetter and the first Kiel Canal trip was windier and also wet!
In between we concentrated on day trips southwards into Rheinland Pfalz as far as the border with Alsace and considered the best way to project our enjoyment to English speaking cyclists. A combination of research and chance lead to our discovery of Gecko Guides, a Singapore-based organisation who publish guides to cities, walking areas or cycling routes see: http://www.guidegecko.com/ Our first is called A Cycling Guide to the Lauter Valley and is available in electronic form for a small fee from Gecko, as is our extended Kiel Canal route - entitled Cycling in Northern Germany, a Loop through Schleswig-Holstein.
After the dismal summer rainy season August through to October was characterised by long sunny spells though fortunately without too many brutally hot days. We used our pensioner’s tickets to hop on and off local trains delivering us to the 50 km distant S. Pfalz from where we made loops in and out of Alsace or enjoyed the delights of the Cabbage and Carrot trail,
or the Vineyard route among the ripening grapes. We discovered that Wednesdays were to be avoided (someone unkindly said that Doctors surgeries were often closed so the pensioners all went cycling, as if...) as some trains could only carry 16 bicycles, rumour had it that some cyclists were forced to detrain, once back in Germany.We intend to continue our explorations next season and make them public via Gecko.
Future trends: Printing costs continue to rise and it seems likely that we may turn more and more to online information, for which we’ll charge a small fee. All our books are still available from us in paper form, or from Omnimap in the USA though we will probably be updating some of them and having them printed on demand by a company in Germany. Our book for Cicerone ‘Cycle Touring in Switzerland’ did very well intitially but sales appear to have fallen, perhaps due to the unmentionable events in the world of finance. Do suggest to your nearest and dearest that they order it as a New Year present for you, please.
After our second trip to Hamburg, Kiel and points south and west in September we have completed the Schleswig-Holstein loop guide, which leads through an area we can thoroughly recommend to families or anyone wanting a gentle and varied return to cycling.
As I write this on December 19th 2009, the year seems to have turned full circle with the car dead at the front door after night temperatures below -15°C! Both of us are still alive and able to cycle 90 km per day. Neil’s doctors encourage both of us that ‘business as usual’ is the best way to deal with his form of Lymphoma - obviously this includes regular check ups in Heidelberg. Up to now he has not needed any treatment so we continue to enjoy life and taking the bikes out for a spin or more often walking in the winter.
We continue to be happy to help anyone planning a trip particularly to Germany to cycle and feel that despite the fall in the value of the pound sterling against the Euro that many Euroland countries still offer value for money. On our Schleswig-Holstein trip, once in the area we spent an average of € 100 per day for the two of us. This included accommodation - a mix of B&B, family hotels and Youth Hostels, meals, some travel on ships and local trains. When we read of B&B prices in the UK or ridiculously expensive meals in the ‘Sunday supplements’ Euroland and even Switzerland outside the real honeypot locations seem fair enough.
Enough has been written or spoken about bad banks, even worse bankers, property crashes, economic plunges, swine ‘flu and other disasters elsewhere so we’re going to ignore them here and concentrate on more pleasant activities.
Our year has been dominated by several cycling breaks but we kicked 2009 off in the Alpes Maritimes, S. France tramping about in deep snow on snowshoes with Space Between, often in brilliant sunshine. A sudden blizzard meant that we spent New Year’s night most comfortably sleeping bagged up on our tour leaders’ floor with other snowshoers after a most jolly evening and dinner party.A couple of days later, after enjoying a post Christmas Marché de Noel in Nice we caught the sleeper back to Strasbourg and arrived home next day.
The next few days were dominated by a deep freeze - temperatures below 0°C for about a month so our car went into hibernation and our neighbour’s cellar flooded. Fortunately we discovered this as water began lapping round our feet in our cellar and for the next few hours it was all hands to the mop as we sought to prevent the waters rising far enough to damage a new freezer and the rather more expensive new boiler. The neighbouring house is unoccupied, opinions vary as to whether they really are still looking after an elderly relative, said to be at death’s door (for more than 4 years), fleeing from justice or abducted by aliens (someone does still collect their post once a week). By the time a phone number was obtained, the flood water was being contained using a borrowed pump on which J had ripped her finger so badly that medical help was required. The neighbour finally showed, installed a new pump in his cellar, apologised for the inconvenience and offered to pay for any damage. We got the floor dry, no damage was sustained to appliances and J’s finger healed quickly.
After that being carless in the cold was compensated for by some excellent winter walking over crisp snow in our nearby hills, until the temperatures finally rose above freezing and SZ (our ancient car) just started without any trouble.
The year then followed its usual pattern with work in house and garden gradually giving way to more cycling. Chance acquisition of an updated maps of our nearby province Rheinland Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) (http://cms.radwanderland.de/) revealed many more cycle routes than we’d suspected. The Eifel hills on the left bank of the Rhine form the northern part of this province and were accessible by train from Mannheim. Our account of this trip, one of three with the theme ‘Weathering summer storms’...) can be accessed in this blog. It was a taste of things to come, the Bodensee was colder and wetter and the first Kiel Canal trip was windier and also wet!
In between we concentrated on day trips southwards into Rheinland Pfalz as far as the border with Alsace and considered the best way to project our enjoyment to English speaking cyclists. A combination of research and chance lead to our discovery of Gecko Guides, a Singapore-based organisation who publish guides to cities, walking areas or cycling routes see: http://www.guidegecko.com/ Our first is called A Cycling Guide to the Lauter Valley and is available in electronic form for a small fee from Gecko, as is our extended Kiel Canal route - entitled Cycling in Northern Germany, a Loop through Schleswig-Holstein.
After the dismal summer rainy season August through to October was characterised by long sunny spells though fortunately without too many brutally hot days. We used our pensioner’s tickets to hop on and off local trains delivering us to the 50 km distant S. Pfalz from where we made loops in and out of Alsace or enjoyed the delights of the Cabbage and Carrot trail,
or the Vineyard route among the ripening grapes. We discovered that Wednesdays were to be avoided (someone unkindly said that Doctors surgeries were often closed so the pensioners all went cycling, as if...) as some trains could only carry 16 bicycles, rumour had it that some cyclists were forced to detrain, once back in Germany.We intend to continue our explorations next season and make them public via Gecko.
Future trends: Printing costs continue to rise and it seems likely that we may turn more and more to online information, for which we’ll charge a small fee. All our books are still available from us in paper form, or from Omnimap in the USA though we will probably be updating some of them and having them printed on demand by a company in Germany. Our book for Cicerone ‘Cycle Touring in Switzerland’ did very well intitially but sales appear to have fallen, perhaps due to the unmentionable events in the world of finance. Do suggest to your nearest and dearest that they order it as a New Year present for you, please.
After our second trip to Hamburg, Kiel and points south and west in September we have completed the Schleswig-Holstein loop guide, which leads through an area we can thoroughly recommend to families or anyone wanting a gentle and varied return to cycling.
As I write this on December 19th 2009, the year seems to have turned full circle with the car dead at the front door after night temperatures below -15°C! Both of us are still alive and able to cycle 90 km per day. Neil’s doctors encourage both of us that ‘business as usual’ is the best way to deal with his form of Lymphoma - obviously this includes regular check ups in Heidelberg. Up to now he has not needed any treatment so we continue to enjoy life and taking the bikes out for a spin or more often walking in the winter.
We continue to be happy to help anyone planning a trip particularly to Germany to cycle and feel that despite the fall in the value of the pound sterling against the Euro that many Euroland countries still offer value for money. On our Schleswig-Holstein trip, once in the area we spent an average of € 100 per day for the two of us. This included accommodation - a mix of B&B, family hotels and Youth Hostels, meals, some travel on ships and local trains. When we read of B&B prices in the UK or ridiculously expensive meals in the ‘Sunday supplements’ Euroland and even Switzerland outside the real honeypot locations seem fair enough.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Strasbourg Station in winter
We have recently been to the South of France for a snow shoeing/walking holiday with the Space-Between organisation and took advantage of the excellent Prem offers from the French Railways (SNCF) to travel between Strasbourg and Nice by overnight train. The city is not that far from Mannheim/Heidelberg and offers a number of convenient trains to travel into France, rather than travelling via Paris. Strasbourg station, although magnificent in the German manner, is a cold place to have to wait for one's train to be announced. For some unknown reason SNCF only announces the departure platform of its trains about 20 minutes before the train departs, so one stays within the station building squinting at video screens. In winter and this year is a cold one, it can be a cold wait by the main entrance, unless one goes to Hall Nord which is at the northern end of the station. This hall has automatic closing doors, a better newspaper and book shop, a couple of good coffee/snack bars and a heated ticket office where one can wait until the train is announced. Strasbourg station in addition offers bike parking and bicycle hire.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
New cycling map of Alsace
We went to a travel fair in Mannheim recently. We were surprised at the number of stands displaying information about cycling (20%). We picked up an excellent map (le tout Bas-Rhin a Velo) of the Bas-Rhin Departement (Colmar to the German border) for free. The map shows all the French and German cycling routes in the Rhine Valley. There is also a 68 page booklet about the area in English, German and French, also free that you can get as well by writing to the Agence de developpement touristique du Bas-Rhin, 9 rue du Dome, F67000 Strasbourg, France. The Haut-Rhin Departement (to the south) appear to have a similar map which you can obtain from their tourist offices. Probably the easiest approach would be to try the French National Tourist Office.
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