Bike Tour Reviews Bolzano – Verona – Venice (page 2)
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★★★★★ Dan1 September 19, 2018With the Dolomites as your splendid background, ride through ancient towns until you reach the unique watery world of Venice.
Highly recommend getting to Bolzano early so you have time to spend a day visiting the Italian Alps. The Dolomite Highway is awe-inspiring.
The bike trails were great. Mostly paved, and when they weren't, the majority were well packed. The tour route goes through picturesque countryside. The daily destinations are beautiful and historical.
The tour includes a 5+ hour ferry ride on Lake Garda. It is a gorgeous ride with the ferry zigzagging down the 35 mile length of the lake. Feels like you are in a National Geographic special. A couple of other recommended "must do's" - visit the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova and take in an opera at the Roman Arena in Verona.
Girolibero was our tour company. They provide great tour book of entire area and towns on route. However, they give it to you (along with bikes) the morning that the tour starts which allows little or no time to really utilize the great information. It would be much better if they provided a month earlier so you have time to research in advance. Should also provide bikes the prior evening so you can get up and leave earlier in the morning.
Some of the directions along the route could have been marked better. We followed other tour companies' markers more often because Girolibero's were fewer and far between. The bikes were excellent. In great shape and mechanically solid with smooth shifting.
We paid for the upgraded hotels. However, a few of them were in sketchy areas; like near train stations.
I don't mean to sound negative. Overall, it was a great trip and very glad we did it. Only offering suggestions to make the tour even better for future riders.
- What was the date of your tour?
- August 26-31
- How many tours have you completed?
- Two
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
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★★★★★ Raff September 29, 2017
Wonderful itinerary, average biking
Great towns, but not enough time to see them. The biking scenery was ok. Really poor cue sheets in English.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 9-16-17-8-22-17
- How many tours have you completed?
- 3
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No
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★★★★★ US cyclist July 31, 2019
Difficult to navigate
I chose this tour because I was finishing up a week of hiking in the Dolomites in Balzano, and though that riding a bike back to Venice to catch my plane would be more interesting than taking the train. I saw that there were several reviewers who noted that they had difficulty navigating but thought, "I can just check Google Maps if I have a problem. How bad could it be?"
Well, it was bad. I found the step by step directions to be indecipherable. The maps made it look easy, but there was not enough detail to actually use them to follow the route. Google maps did not pick up the bike paths, so could not provide a cycling route. I spent a significant part of each day lost and frustrated, in addition to inadvertently ending up on roads with heavy traffic and adding extra miles to the trip. Towards the end of the week I discovered that there were several people from Belgium who were riding the same route I was, but had booked directly with the tour company rather than going through a third party. They were emailed the routes in digital format, and were able to download them to their Garmin. This was not offered to me.
The area is beautiful, bike paths nice, and local folks very friendly and helpful.- What was the date of your tour?
- Ended July 28, 2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- 20+
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- No