Italy Bike Tour Reviews page 3
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★★★★★ ShopTherapy
Beautiful Scenery, 249 Miles Total
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
Cividale del Friiuli, Bled, Udine, Trieste, beautiful cities. Special moments, the manager at the Aguntum Museum (near Lienz) gave an unforgettable welcome to our soggy group (it poured buckets the first day out) and Hannes Grimmer Holzdesign (near Reisach) - amazing wood carvings. Nice hotels overall. Only issues were an A/C outage at the Bled hotel, and "the outbuilding" at the Cividale del Friuli hotel - tiny rooms that were nicely appointed but it was a walk from the main hotel that posed a challenge for older bikers in our group with walking issues. Tour operator customer service was excellent - second tour with them, would definitely use them again. Ebikes were new with strong motors and the techs on site took care of changing the displays to English/miles for us. Recommend completing this tour by mid-June due to summer temps in Italy.
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★★★★★ Ray Friedman
Excellent routes. Beautiful. Some issues with service.
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
The trip, overall, was wonderful. Beautiful views and great trails. We had a few problems communicating with the staff, which I’ll come back to.
The first day was gorgeous. Going through the Dolomites, on dedicated bike trails that were full of everything from serious riders to families with kids on bikes. Nice graduate downhill. Our ebikes used only 2 out of 5 bars on the battery indicator. Ended at a very small town, Oberdrauburg, which had a grocery, a few restaurants, and one of the best cake shops I have ever been to! But now much else to do.The second day to Feistritz was a bit less exciting, we were on (mostly empty) roads about half the time, and again you end in a very small town. If it is warm, bring your swimsuit with you! You pass a lake with nice beaches and hundreds of people out sunning themselves. Closer to the Feinstritz, there was wonderful local outdoor swim club. After getting our swimsuits, we backtracked about 15 minutes to that swim club. A nice way to spend the late afternoon.
The third day was spectacular! The scenery was amazing, and the dedicated bike trails were also amazing. There is some uphill on this day, and a bit of easy road riding, but it ends a Bled which is stunning. We got to swim again.
The fourth day took a bit more concentration, with some time on bigger roads. Not too much traffic, but there were a few trucks. Ended at Cividale, which is a UNESCO World Heritage town that I had never heard of. Seeing Cividale was the big payoff for this day.
The fifth day was a lot on gravel roads through flat fields. Think Nebraska corn fields, but with grape vines. The biking was good exercise, but not so beautiful. However, Udine was another big surprise. A small town that was very much worth the time. Don’t take the shortcut that misses Udine! We ended at The Franz hotel, which has a pool that was very much appreciated after a hot day of biking.
The last ride was to Trieste. We decided to play it safe and do the inland route. It was actually quite beautiful, and we were happy to avoid the stress of cars on the coastal route. Once in Trieste, it was very hard to follow the route and to navigate the city. We loved the city, but just not on bikes. We stayed an extra day in Trieste and really enjoyed it. A beautiful city, that was not nearly as crowded as more well-known tourist spots in Italy.
Overall, the hotels were OK. The first three did not have A/C, and two of those had no elevator. We managed to carry our luggage to the third floor, but we were tired and hot. This is an issue only in the summer months. The heat while biking was not so bad, but some of the hotel rooms were around 80 degrees.
The app worked well for guidance except I had to learn that when it said “In 90 meters…” it really meant about 20 or 30 meters. And it occasionally got left and right backwards (I just followed the map on my phone). Still, it worked well. Do beware that it needs to be running constantly, so burns through power on your cell phone. I learned to be careful to stop it when we took breaks, and we switched to my wife’s phone mid-day. SHOW MORE
My only big annoyance was communication with the staff. There was no one to meet you and show you how to control the ebike when you arrive (there was a video introduction in German). We found our way to the bike shop, but they were clearly unhappy to be dealing with us. We had arranged to rent helmets, but these were not with the bikes, and there was no explanation of what to do. We called the contact number, they told us the bike shop would have them. But the bike shop initially said that they don’t do that (it got cleared up with a call to the office). I had problems with the seat, and the shop said they couldn’t swap seats. Fair enough, but then I had to push them to adjust the seat (slide it back on the rail a bit) to make it better, and they were clearly unhappy doing that simple adjustment. They warned us that we were responsible for the bikes, so I was surprised they only provide one lock for two bikes. The office told us to pick up a second one at the shop, but the shop refused. I found out that at the first hotel, the plugs are spread apart, so you couldn’t plug them in and lock them together. It was not clear if that would be the case at the other hotels, so I asked if we can leave one unlocked in the hotel, if needed. They said it “should” be OK. I was hoping for a clear answer, since they emphasized that we are responsible for the bikes.
Overall, a great trip. We loved the route. The bikes and app worked fine. The hotels were good except for the heat in a few of them. Communication with the company was the main issue. (By the way, the bike shop staff in Trieste were wonderful.)
I’m glad we did the trip. Wish they could have made it easier on the first day.
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★★★★★ William Gibson
Dolomites to the sea in Trieste
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
This was a fun trip overall. The route begins with beautiful scenery thru mountain valleys with it's conclusion into the wine country north of Trieste. Numerous historical sites along the way with castles, churches and town centers to see. The lake in Bled is stunning.
Accommodations were mostly fantastic with excellent food for dinner and breakfast.
We had a few problems at the start with missing bike accessories for the e-bikes. Luckily this was easy to sort out at the bike shop in Dobbacio the evening before our ride.- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2024
- How many tours have you completed?
- Some self guided gravel biking in Colorado
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy, Slovenia, Austria
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★★★★★ Shayne palfreyman
Beautiful scenery - well organised
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
Cycling is an awesome way to see some beautiful scenery and experience the area. The tour itinerary is great - very achievable daily rides and the app showing the routes worked well though a couple of recent changes to the path need updating.
The luggage transfers and accommodations all were very well organised
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★★★★★ Skippy
Loved the Scenery!
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
Enjoyed each day! Length was good, even including the king day!
- What was the date of your tour?
- Sept 8-15, 2018
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Bumble
Beautiful Scenery
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
From the picturesque mountains in the north to the open flat lands of the south this was a joy to ride. The hotels were clean and welcoming.
- What was the date of your tour?
- June 2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- Four
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Marv
First European Bike trip
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
This was an amazing trip. Well organized, excellent hotels and breakfast. The route was beautiful. The bicycling was more challenging than we expected, but we are casual cyclists. If you are somewhat of a serious cyclist, it would be no problem. 95% of the directions were excellent. 5% were very confusing or ambiguous. Everyone in our group got lost at one point or another. Overall, well organized and beautiful trip. We will book again with Biketours.com.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 09/14/2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Alexthegr8
A Bumpy Ride at Times, but Worth It.
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
The scenery ranges from pleasant (Asolo to Treviso) to spectacular (Cortina to Belluno), and the hotels (all of which were nice) were conveniently located with the exception of those in Belluno and Treviso, which are located too far from the center to walk. Bikes were OK, although the pump provided did not fit the tube stem, and the extra inner tube was too large. We saw very little signage on the first day, although the frequency of signage increased over the length of the trip. The GPS, for which we paid extra, did not work, and is unnecessary in any case. All that said, we enjoyed the riding very much, and would definitely recommend it to others, most particularly if they have some prior experience (there are a few detours along the way) .
- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- 8
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Llewellyn Fernandes
Beautiful Italy from Mountains to Coast
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
The views of the mountains and countryside were fabulous ! And best experienced on bike. All the hotels along the way were nice and comfortable. Luggage usually delivered by 4pm, so sometimes we toured the town and had a bistro stop before ending the day at the hotel. Since my daughter was having some challenges with the distances, we just hopped on a train to complete the day's journey and toured the town. It was actually a great way to spend the day. Only issue we had was that all the instructions were in German. This did cause some challenges because there was a major detour one day. We figured it out but would have been much easier if all information was in English (as we expected since we communicated in English throughout the booking process). Otherwise it was a fabulous trip !
- What was the date of your tour?
- May 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- 4
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Don Thain
Mostly fantastic
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
This trip used rental bikes and was self-guided. The basics worked well with hotel bookings and luggage transfers. The bikes were fine for this but had minor deficiencies. The joining instructions were incorrect but were sorted out with a phone call. Routings were chosen to highlight scenery and views while avoiding traffic. The map sets were disappointing as directions were muddled. Other cyclists had the same complaint. But it was a great trip nonetheless.
- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- 3
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Diane Witters
Great first trip with BikeTours.com
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
Overall, we really enjoyed the experience and were impressed with the scenery, lodging, quality of the bikes (one of us had an e-bike and the other a “top bike “), and the multiple layers of navigation provided by Fun Active Tours, the local outfitter. We also appreciated the detailed instructions for the luggage and train transfers. We especially enjoyed the first 3 legs of the journey through the Dolomites of northern Italy, into Austria, and then the entry into Slovenia with views of the Julian Alps and into Lake Bled. Trieste may have its merits but the city was quite chaotic and difficult to navigate and find our hotel by bike.
- What was the date of your tour?
- June 2023
- How many tours have you completed?
- this was our first tour
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy, Slovenia, Austria
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★★★★★ Emily Magnavita
Great trip
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
Trip was great, however, there was lack of communication with the company as far as planning logistics. Directions were unclear and sometimes incorrect, got lost on the route multiple times due to lack of information and description in the directions.
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★★★★★ Rhonda Barton
Beautiful views!
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
The trip was beautiful! The views through the Dolomites and Julian Alps are constantly awe provoking. The hotels were also wonderful, our favorite being Alta Post in Feistritz an der Gail!
Bikes: We paid for the upgrade but it didnt feel as though we were upgraded. The bikes we received were not well maintained. We had a bike brake on the first day of our tour and the replacement bike had a loose peddle the rest of our tour. A few of our bikes were not tuned well and gears were either difficult to shift or couldn't be geared all the way up or down. In general, we would have appreciated better maintained bikes for a 230 mile tour, it would make the days much more enjoyable. We also had to swing by the rental place for a bike pump that had the correct valve for pumping up tires. The bikes were equipped with presta valves, but the pumps were schrader valves. We also recommend placing an allen key in the repair kit. We had several items that we had to adjust, angles of the header, tightness of the bells, etc. Having an allen key would have made these adjustments easier to make.
Bike Accessories: we think you should provide or tell the riders to bring a cell phone mount for the trip. The app was nice to have but we had to constantly get the phone out of our pockets to follow along. This can get quite dangerous on certain parts of the tour.
App: the phone app was a great perk to the trip although our main complaint is that every tour participant should have access to the app. It is challenging to have only one person with the app and it doesnt seem to make much sense to limit access. Give everyone who paid for the tour access please. -
★★★★★ Dantzel Crane
Beautiful sights, okay directions
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
We absolutely loved our trip to Italy! It was such a treat to be able to be outside and spend significant time in the Italian countryside, seeing the beauty that is there. My only critique is that often times the directions were a bit difficult to follow. It might just be that I am unfamiliar with the Italian road system, but there were several times where we needed to check the map that was given to us by the tour company against Google maps to make sure that we were in the right place and hadn’t missed a significant turn. Otherwise, the hotels were fine but nothing special (we did not pay for upgraded hotels), the bikes were great, and we loved our time in Italy so much!
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Mickey Shnaiderman
An almost perfect tour
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
A very unusual and exciting way to explore to Dolomites. Riding the bicycle through the those magnificent views was truly astounding.
The routes were picked correctly both in terms of distance and terrain.
Also, the provided booklet with the brief information about the routes and food recommendation was great!
All the hotels were great with excellent service, breakfasts were good and had us full until arrival.
The bicycles were good too, although we would expect to have some help adjusting them to our sizes. My girlfriend is very short and we had to find a multi-tool to adjust her saddle horizontal position. If we had all the tools supplied, it would be much easier.
We also had one miscommunication: one of the hotels was changed, so we got the updated list of hotels before the beginning of the tour. Upon arrival, we got all the maps and another list of hotels. This printed list stated that all previous lists were invalid, so we took it for granted. At the second day of riding, which was the longest and the hardest, we arrived exhausted to the wrong hotel, only to realize we have 3 more kilometres to ride to a hotel outside the city. That, in turn, meant that we were left with only one dinner option - in the hotel itself. It was great, though, but quite expensive.
The navigation was a bit tricky too. The app is a bit primitive, sometimes got stuck, drained a lot of battery when navigating with the screen on (compared to Google Maps that takes much less battery). In one occasion it also got my phone so hot it had to shut down. In some several places the app tried to take us on to non existent roads or onto incoming traffic. It was also unaware of road constructions. Other than that, when getting the hang of this app, it wasn't that bad. We managed to find our way without too much of a hustle.
A tip to give to other riders next time: Venice has a secured parking spot for bicycles for a 10€ per bicycles. It is essentially a huge locker for the bike. Also, a big shout-out for Anthony, who called us to help finding the return place of the bikes. He also gave us the tip of riding to Venice and then leaving them in the hotel inserted of in the garage.- How many tours have you completed?
- 2
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Kathy D
MIghty Dolomity
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
Truly enjoyed the trip. Great bike paths for most of the route. Beautiful scenery and great overnight stays. A few hotels didn't have air conditioning but that is not unusual in this part of the world. Unfortunately, Europe is experiencing a very hot summer in 2022. We greatly enjoyed the route and all there was to see and do along the way. The bikes were not what we had expected. Very heavy, more like a beach bike w 21 gears. If you take this trip and are used to a better bike, as we are, upgrade the bike you use. Very difficult riding these very heavy bikes up some of the hills. We took a train on Day 3 for a break - mostly because of the bikes. Saving grace - the train system is fantastic and they all have capacity for bikes at a minimal cost. The app was very good once we figured out how to use it. Would have been helpful if FunActive Tour Company had given us some instruction on how to use it prior to us departing.
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★★★★★ Sam Roozendaal
Beatiful Views
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
Great way to see the Dolomites and Northern Italy. Majority of the ride was on paths, so low stress. There is more climbing than indicated in the description so be prepared. The rental bikes are 21 speed vintage 1990's so heavy and not geared well for the climbs.
- What was the date of your tour?
- May 2024
- How many tours have you completed?
- 4
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Mary-lou Huculak
Amazing scenery.
Dolomites to Venice Along the Old Dolomites Railway Track
The fresh air and mountain peaks are spectacular. I would recommend upgrading the bike rental as the basic trekking bike were not efficient for the terrain of this route.
- What was the date of your tour?
- May, 2024
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Stanthepianoman
It was the trip of a lifetime.
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
The scenery was amazing! The bike paths and back roads were awesome. With a couple of changes I would give the trip a 5 star review: First, they shouldn't give an option to ride the train to Jessenice to Bled. This town is scary and hard to navigate. The ride over the pass was minor from what we were told.
Second, the Hotel Roma in Civedale is a dump. Hard beds and rude employees. All the other hotels and inns ranged from nice to awesome.
Third, we should have stayed in Bled and extra day. Our own fault on this one.
Last, the ride in to Trieste was dangerous. It was like riding the gauntlet. I would have liked to drop off our bikes out of town and walked or Ubered in to the city. This is a big busy city and many in our group were unhappy with the danger involved. -
★★★★★ San2C
Wonderful Experience
Dolomites to Trieste via Lake Bled at the Foot of the Julian Alps
The greatest surprise was that every day was a different experience. Hotels were comfortable, and the change in landscape was delightful. A few of the days would have been extremely challenging for us without E-Bikes and a GPS for guidance.
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