Munich and Salzburg Bike Tours

Our family visited Munich several times roaming around on our own. On the last visit we did a bike tour (not with Mike's - instead with a competitor with few attending). Our boys 18 & 21 and 19 yr old friend are difficult to get to do any tour, but they really liked the bike tour as did my wife and I. A stop in the english biergarten didn't hurt either. Anyway, if you are free spirited and looking for a fun way to see some sights, go for it. If you want to depart Munich with a serious lesson, then a bike tour may not be best.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the bike tour in Munich. On foot, I saw about 75% of what was on the tour the previous day. And except for one church, you don't actually enter any buildings. "with a little bit of history thrown in." Emphasis on "a little bit". There wasn't much more insights offered than you could read in any decent guidebook. Perhaps even less, actually.

I agree with Tom. We enjoyed Mike's Bikes in Munich, but most of the stops are very close together and the emphasis is more entertainment than education. It turned out our guide was very knowledgeable, but we got the impression he was expected to entertain us more than educate us. We learned more in brief one-on-one conversations with him rather than the schtick he performed for the group. Still, we are glad we did the tour and would consider the longer tour (covering more areas of interest) on another visit.

We took middle school kids, and we had a very good time. Yes, the emphasis is on fun so if you're going because you want to learn a lot of real facts and information then this is not the trip for you. Again it's geared toward fun.

You can accomplish everything you want to on foot in both places and go at your own pace.

Check out some of the other walking tours in Munich. If you are on a reputable, high quality walking tour, led by a guide that is passionate about their city, who has spent a good chunk of time learning the history, there is no way you can get as much out of a city on your own, just walking around with a guide book. For Bike Tours, I think Lennys Bikes have moved ahead of Mikes Bikes with reviews and customer satisfaction. At least on Trip Advisor they have. Not sure if Rick lists them or not. Too hot today to walk over to my book shelf to look. :-)

Stacie...we've visited both Munich & Salzburg on separate trips. Can't say about bikes in Munich as we primarily walked around the city on our own (we actually were only there for a couple days as our friends wanted to tour Dachau one of the days). In Salzburg we did Maria's bike tour, and it was the first organized tour we've done in 5 visits to Europe, as we prefer instead to explore on our own. That said, we all 4 enjoyed ourselves on it...part of the fun was just cruising around the city & countryside on the bikes. We had already seen many of the sights on our own on the days previous to the bike tour (we postponed it a day due to rain) but the guide did explain some additional aspects about the sights that we didn't know (so that was nice) so even if you're not a SOM fan, you get a bit of historical perspective thrown in. I have other friends who have done a similar tour in a van/bus and they now want to do the bike tour if they return. Enjoy!! Patti

I can definitely recommend Mikes' Bike Tours we rented bikes from them for a day and they bikes were great, the directions and assistance from the staff were great. Can also recommend their Bus, Bike and Hike tour to vising Neuschwanstein we had a great day and their tour is far more informative than most others.

My wife and I did the Mike's Bike in Munich, loved it. Had a great group, excellent funny guide, and saw more in a few hours than you could be walking. Going to Amsterdam in September and will join that tour as well. The bike is a good way to scout the sites, talk to other travelers and have fun.

Stacie, we did both tours in July and had a great time on both. The fr. Maria tour involved more riding and the area could not be covered by walking. Our guide, Kata, and the 5 Irish coeds singing all the songs made it a lot of fun.in both cities we rented bikes the next day as it a fun and efficient way to get around. Mikes was very helpful to rent from. The earlier descriptions about lack of depth on their tour were accurate but the tours are still fun and you meet other nice people who are out to have a good time. I also did a Third Reich walking tour with Radius tours which was excellent, informative. Steve was an excellent guide. I would recommend them for a Dachau tour as the audio guides at Dachau were terrible and confusing.
Have a great trip!

Thanks for all of the great feed back! I can always count on this site for many points of view. We are looking forward to our trip which is now just a few weeks away.

"the audio guides at Dachau were terrible and confusing." No need to use an audio guide. The Dachau Memorial gives tours, guided by a real person trained by the Memorial, two times a day (same number of tours as Radius), at 11 AM and 1 PM. These tours take 2½ hours and cost 3€ per person. Assuming you are already going to use an Innenraum Tageskarte for transportation in Munich, you can get an XXL Tageskarte, which includes transportation all the way to the Memorial, for 2€ more for 1 person, 3€ more for up to 5.