Bed and Bike Luxembourg

The Bed and Bike Luxembourg website now includes a list if cyclist friendly accommodation in eastern Belgium, so if you are planning to cycle the Vennbahn cycle route from Aachen to Troisvierges (Luxembourg) you can information on where to stop. The website is in French and German, so maybe Google Translator will need to be used, but this is better than the original ADFC German website which is now only available in German after some years being bilingual in German and English. Quite why this should be so I don't know. Some years ago we suggested a quick and dirty translation method which was turned down in favour of a bells and whistles luxury full translation, but this was probably too expensive to maintain.

Beer soft drink mixtures for cyclists Part I

Many continental beers at 5% alcohol content are stronger than British draught beers at 2% alcohol. As in Britain it is usual for cyclists especially to dilute their beer with lemonade. However what do you ask for? Asking for a shandy in a Munich beer hall will get you some funny looks and no shandy.

Here is a list of the names that various dilute beer mixtures are called:

The easy one  for our American cousins in Britain is Shandy, a mixture of about 50% beer and 50% lemonade. It would appear that our US friends drink Shandygaff which is the same thing. One of the most refreshing drinks of this type is a Ginger Beer Shandy, which could well become an export hit in post-BREXIT Britain. This too is a 50:50 mixture, but note it is a Ginger Beer not Ginger Ale. Since most beer lemonade shandies come pre-bottled these days Ginger Beer Shandy is not easy to find.

In southern Germany you ask for a Radler - a cyclist and in the north you ask for an Alsterwasser if you want a beer lemonade mixture - the Alster is the lake in the centre of Hamburg. However in some parts of Bavaria, but do not ask me where, a Radler is known as a Russ. On the River Elbe the familiar beer lemonade mixture is called  Ententeich or Entenpuhl - duckpond. On the River Weser in the northwest of Germany the beer lemonade mixture is called Fliegerbier - Pilot's Beer. In and around Münster in Westphalia the locals drink a beer orangeade mixture called Wurstwasser - sausage water. Why, I don't know. I drank it once on a very hot day in the winegrowing area of the lower Mosel Valley. It was all the pub had. I suppose it was really twice - for the first and last time.  If you are in Berlin in summer ask for a Berliner Weisse (German: Berliner Weiße) mit Schuß which is a cloudy, sour, white beer of around 3% alcohol which is coloured with a shot of Himbeer raspberry or Waldmeister green artificial woodruff cordial. In north-eastern part of the former German Democratic Republic a beer raspberry flavoured soft drink mixture is known as a Potsdamer.

In Austria you ask for an Almradler a mixture of beer and Almdudler. The original Almdudler is a sweetened carbonated soft drink made of herbal extracts. Almdudler is the "national drink of Austria". In the western Austrian province of Vorarlberg you need to specify whether you want your beer diluted with lemonade Süsses Radler or with mineral water Saures Radler.


Dutch cyclists drink Sneeuwwitje - Snow White, a beer lemonade mixture but don't ask me how you pronounce it.

The Belgians around Antwerp call for a Tango - a beer with cola when they wish to dilute their excellent beers.

In Switzerland and in Luxembourg one asks for a Panaché (from the French panacher meaning to mix). If you wish to dilute your beer with cola then add the word "coca"- Panaché coca. In the Saarland, the German province, where French is the first foreign language taught in schools, one asks for a Panasch to obtain a lemonade beer mixture.

One can, of course, use non-alcoholic or low alcohol beers instead of a full strength beer. If you are not taken with the flavour of alcohol-free beers, this is an excellent way of disguising their too hoppy flavour.

These days a lot of German breweries like those in the UK pre-mix Radler. You'll get a bottle of Radler rather than a mixture of lemonade and draught beer.

If when you are touring in hot weather you hit a wall of tiredness we find a quick lift is offered by a cola-orangeade mixture known in most of Germany as a Spezi, but in Mannheim and district as a Kalter Kaffee - cold coffee.

River Cruising coupled with bicycling

River Cruising is a fast growing tourist activity in Europe and several companies specialise in combined cycling and cruising holidays with a wide range of prices. As usual you get what you pay for. Some companies offer barge trips wheres other companies have larger cruise ships.
A sample of the type of trips available:
Aktieve Vaarvkanties offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / Bavaria, Germany  / Lorraine, France on a converted barge that takes eighteen people in nine double cabins with ensuite facilities. 

Aktieve Vaarvkanties

Barend Visserstraat 9
8861 HB Harlingen 

T: +31 6 22418892

info@actievevaarvakanties.nl http://www.boatandbike.eu/ 

Arosa offers bicycle day excursions (surcharge) on its river cruise ships: https://www.a-rosa.de/en/river-cruises/index.html.

Bicycle Tour Europe offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / France / Belgium on a converted barge that takes sixteen people in eight double cabins with ensuite facilities.
www.Bicycle-Tour-Europe.com | P/O Bo 1097, Postalcode 1000 BB, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bike & Barge Holland Tours offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / Germany (Bremen-Berlin) on a converted barge that takes twenty-eight people in fourteen double cabins with ensuite facilities.

Address:
13440 179th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052-1103, USA

Phone:
425.636.8071
800.437.4771

Email: tours@bikebarge.com

http://bikebarge.com/index.php

European Waterways Ltd offer barges for charter by small groups.
European Waterways Ltd 
The Barn, Riding Court
Riding Court Road, Datchet
Berkshire, SL3 9JT
United Kingdom
http://www.gobarging.com/cycling-cruise

Bicycle-Tour-Europe offers week long trips in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours has partnered with Trek Travel to offer guests bicycle tours on Europe itineraries.
Guests aboard the seven-night, all-inclusive Bike & River Cruise sailings will be able to enjoy Trek Domaine 5.9 carbon road bikes on explorations that range from 15 to 60 miles with daily route support and experienced bicycling guides. These tours come in addition to those which Scenic already provides and are available from May to September on the Gems of the Danube and Rhine Highlights itineraries.
Gems of the Danube, aboard Scenic Amber, allows cyclists to ride through Furth and Erlangen, sampling local beers, the vineyards of the Wachau Region, the Vienna Woods, and Budapest’s Buda hills and its architecture. Non-cycling tours include a walking tour of Cesky Krumlov or Salzburg, a Budapest city tour or thermal baths, and spa experience and a Scenic-exclusive concert in Palais, Liechtenstein. Prices start at $6,499 per person per double with departures on May 10, 22, and 31, June 26, July 26, and August 30.
The Rhine Highlights, aboard Scenic Jewel, visits four countries. Highlights for bicyclists include cycling through the Alsace wine route for tastings of Rieslings and Pinot Gris, the Rhine Gorge with its scattered castles and vineyards, the bike trails of Cologne, and Amsterdam’s countryside for a cheese-tasting tour. Non-cycling tours include a Scenic-exclusive private tour and classical concert at the Baroque-period Mannheim Palace, a “Sweet Tastes” tour of Heidelberg, and a trip to the fairy tale town of Cochem. Priced from $6,599 per person per double, departures take place on June 12, August 16 and September 13.
Scenic Space-Ships offer private butler service, unlimited complimentary beverages and spirits, full-size private balcony staterooms, Scenic Tailormade handheld GPS guided tour systems provided to every guest, and up to six dining options.
Visit www.scenicusa.com

Ways of encouraging cycling to work

We are thinking of building a bicycle box for the front of the house and came across the Velo-Boxx which is manufactured in Belgium. It would appear that Belgian tax laws are very cyclist friendly:

Pursuant to article 64 (b) of the Belgian Income Tax Code (WIB of 1992; assessment year 2010), the Velo-Boxx is a 120% deductible expenditure;
ｰ all costs incurred or borne that relate specifically to encouraging employees to cycle to and from work to the extent that any such costs have been incurred or borne in order to:
- Acquire real estate, to build or renovate a facility for parking cycles during the
working hours of the employees; or
- Provide sanitary conveniences or changing rooms, with showers as appropriate.

An excellent idea.

Cyclist- and bicyclist-friendly accommodation in Europe

We wrote about the German Cycling Club's BettundBike.de/en website earlier, in 2013. It is an excellent website offering lists of cyclist-friendly accommodation (Hotels, pensions, guest houses, youth hostels camping sites) in Europe. The idea has spread into neighbouring countries.

In addition there are other sources of information in websites listing cyclist-friendly accommodation:

• Austria Vienna Wien.info has 130 cyclist friendly hotels/pensions/guest houses on its books.
• Belgium 
• Flanders http://www.visitflanders.co.uk/discover/flanders/cycling-flanders/bed-and-bike/index.jsp lists 300 places to stop, that offer all that that warms the heart of the touring cyclist.
• Wallonia An Internet search did not reveal any website offering information about cyclist-friendly accommodation in the French speaking province of Belgium. 
• Croatia There seems to be no specific information available on cyclist friendly hotels but on the other hand we suspect that all the hotels in Croatia are cyclist-friendly.
• Denmark The http://cyclistic.dk/en/ website has lists of cyclist-friendly accommodation in Denmark.
• France In our experience all French hotels are cyclist-friendly and with one exception over about 35 years of cycling in France, we've always had somewhere to lock our bikes away, in the countryside in sheds and in the cities conference rooms or unused offices. 
• Netherlands The http://www.allefietserswelkom.nl/kaart shows a map of the Netherlands with accommodation marked. By clicking on the map one links to the hotel and hostel websites. The website is in Dutch, but the accommodation websites often offer an English version. 
• Poland There seems to be no specific information available on cyclist friendly hotels but on the other hand we suspect that all the hotels in Poland are cyclist-friendly. There are links to accommodation on http://www.poland.travel/en/cycling/cyclist--environmentalist/. 
• Switzerland Check out http://www.veloland.ch/en/accommodation.html

Vennbahn: Cyclist-friendly accommodation in East Belgium

If you wish to cycle along the Vennbahn from Aachen, Germany to Trois Vierges, Luxembourg, then it will be good news that Tourist Authority of East Belgium in cooperation with the LVI, the Luxembourg Cycling Club and Velosophie tourism consultants in Luxembourg has organised a Bed and Bike guide similar to the German ADFC Bett und Bike Guide and the Luxembourg LVI Bed and Bike Guide. The guide will lead cyclists to cyclist-friendly accommodation along the 850km of cycle routes in German speaking Belgium. The easiest way of accessing the guide for non-German speakers is to log onto the English version of the German www.bettundbike.de by clicking on the Union Flag upper right. Belgium can be found under Countries. We have yet to find anything similar for the UK, pity really.

Booking a self-guided bicycling holiday in Europe

Two German companies have done what we suspect should have been done for years. Various companies in Austria and Germany offer cycling holidays, but their publicity materials are in German.  
Radweg-Reisen  offer self-guided tours for English speakers in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands on amongst others the :

• Altmuehl Cycle Path,
• Drava Cycle Path,
• Rhine Cycle Path Mainz-Cologne,
• River Main Cycle Route,
• The Weser Cycle Path,
• The Loire Valley Castles.

Radweg-Reisen GmbH, Fritz-Arnold-Straße 16a, D-78467 Konstanz, Germany,
Phone +49-(0)7531-81 99 3-0, www.radweg-reisen.com

The Mecklenberger Radtour company (http://www.mecklenburger-radtour.de/en/cycling-holidays)  offers guided and self-guided tours for non German speakers all over Germany and Austria. It is well worth checking out if you would like to tour by bicycle in either of these cyclist friendly nations.
If you fancy cycling in Europe but are worried about the language, booking hotels, finding a hire bike and/or planning routes then try one of the holidays offered by these companies. The prices seem reasonable to us.

Tour de Flanders: The Flanders Ring

We are gradually uploading all our photographs and books to a cloud based system, just in case we have serious computer problems - the legendary Coca Cola drinking, peanut butter eating puppy comes to mind. We are using a number of different files in our cloud and so have been looking through our old photographs. I have just found the photographs we took on our trip through Belgium or more exactly Flanders in 2003 (www.fietsroute.org/indexuk.php). It was an excellent twelve day trip from Maastricht back to Maastricht with in part superb Knooppunt signposting. I suspect it is all now signposted in this way.

Historically, it was an interesting trip with visits to Waterloo and Ypres. One does get the impression that although Napoleon lost at Waterloo, the locals seem to think he should have won. There is little mention of Wellington. The main monument is the Lion's Mound (or "Lion's Hillock", "Butte du Lion" in French, "Leeuw van Waterloo" in Dutch). It is a large conical artificial hill raised to commemorate the location where the Price of Orange (William II of the Netherlands) was knocked from his horse by a musket ball to the shoulder during the battle. 

It is difficult to get away from WWI in West Belgium. We found the Peace Cycle Tour from war memorial to war grave cemeteries in Ypres very moving and even more so when we returned on a wet November day.

We were surprised to learn there were cyclist regiments who acted as a quick response force along the flooded sections behind Ostend in 1914 and 15.

Farther north on the River Schelde we and many other cyclists made good use of the ferries.

The food was very good. The chocolate was magnificent. The chips (French Fries) were excellent and came in washing up bowls and then the beer, aaah! the beer was wonderful.

A new source of campsites?

If like us you prefer quiet small campgrounds, it's worthwhile casting an eye on www.campinmygarden.com. The website aims to link house and garden owners with campers seeking a micro camp site. At the moment only the UK in Europe is well covered, but give the site time.

Vennbahn

We both enjoy cycling along national borders, crisscrossing from one country to the next. For us Britons it is fascinating that within a metre that laws, language, coffee flavour and cakes change completely. In Britain one needs to cross over or under the sea to experience this change. We are also fascinated by the concept of the enclave, an island of one country in another. The Vennbahn cycle route from Aachen (D) to Trois Vierges (LUX) offers the chance to experience slightly artificial enclaves and frequent border crossing on a former railway line, i.e. with very few steep hills. The enclaves arose because two German counties were annexed by Belgium in 1920 under the Treaty of Versailles. In addition Belgium was granted the Vennbahn railway between Aachen and Luxembourg. At the time the line connected the Ruhr coal mines and steelworks with the iron ore and steelworks in Luxembourg. It was of commercial and military importance. Unfortunately the line ran in part to the east of the border of the new Belgian cantons and so a number of German villages found themselves to be enclaves, because it was necessary to cross the railway line back in to the Fatherland. This gave rise to interesting smuggling activities, coffee, for example after WWII when coffee was very expensive in Germany and cheaper in Belgium.
We are hoping to cycle the 125 km route from Aachen to Luxembourg later in the summer. The problem in the moment is what do we do once we arrive in Luxembourg. Although there is an extensive network of cycle routes in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg the routes in the north are steep if memory serves correctly. More research is required. We could take a train from Trois Vierges to Trier and go home cheaply on a Rheinland-Pfalz ticket, but it seems to be a lot of railway for a little cycling.

Bikes and trains in Belgium

Our memories of Belgium, well I suppose, more exactly Flanders, are of a delightful place to cycle with well sign posted cycleways and friendly tourist offices. Obviously the quality of the beer and chocolate are other plus points. Belgian Railways too are bike friendly. You can put your bicycle on most trains and use most stations. The stations where changing with a bicycle is not possible are Brussels Central, Brussels Chapelle and Brussels Congres. Taking your bike with you costs 5 Euro per bicycle and trip and 9 Euro per tandem/bicycle with trailer and trip. There are similar day tickets for 8 and 16 Euro. You can buy a one trip ticket online or pick one up from a ticket office. You need to buy the day tickets from a station. You must load and unload your bicycle under the supervision of the train crew. If you can avoid travelling with a bike at peak times it makes life easier for all.

‘Cycle points’?
Cycle Points are a Belgian speciality and the result of cooperation between Belgian Railways and various social organisations. They are located in or around a railway station and offer a number of services: surveillance and maintenance of bike parks, bicycle rental to train passengers, commuters, students and tourists, corporate bicycle rental and minor repairs.

The first Cycle Points opened in the course of 2007, in the stations in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Courtrai, Bruges, Leuven and Mechelen.
Other stations in Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia are to follow.