Please sign in to post.

Cycling the Elbe trip report

In May we did a 9 day cycling trip along the Elbe, from Dresden to Magdeburg. Easy riding, so while we personally ride a lot, I wouldn't say one has to be super-fit to do such a trip (and you can ride more or less as you wish). There are a number of bike touring companies in Germany who specialize in "self-guided" bike tours; we used Mecklenburger Radtour. They'll give you a bike and a map, book your hotels, and transport your luggage each day. You could also just rent a bike from the train station but then you'd have to carry all your stuff with you; it was nice just having someone else take care of the bags.

The great thing about cycling the Elbe (besides it being flat) is that you truly get to see the countryside and visit smaller cities/towns along the way, which seems to me to line up nicely with Rick's "through the back door" philosophy. Keeping in mind this was all formerly East Germany, even nearly 30 years after the wall came down, it seemed in the smaller towns that folks were a bit surprised to see American tourists. The Elbe bike path is extremely well signed, and people were very friendly. Two different days we came upon a local fair, just serendipity, nothing we would necessarily have known about or planned for. For those interested in WWII sites, Strehla and Torgau both had monuments for the meeting of the US and Soviet armies over the Elbe in 1945. If you like wine, you go through a fine wine region. If you like beer, well everywhere is good.

Overall, great way to see more of the country and not just hit the (admittedly awesome) cities of Dresden and Berlin.

Posted by
1056 posts

Thanks for your bike tour report. I have fond memories of a bike-barge trip in the Netherlands and nearly as fond memories of a similar trip from a Paris to Bruges( (LOTS of hills on that one), and also enjoyed a day bike trip in Rome. I’ll keep your comments in mind.

Posted by
63 posts

Thanks for sharing! Makes me wish I were able to do this tour. It sounds wonderful, especially biking through the countryside and the small towns and villages along the way. Am just exploring Dresden and Meissen for a future visit. I'm planning to do an Elbe cruise upriver and spend the night in a small town halfway to the Czech border.

Posted by
14482 posts

Thanks for a most interesting report. All those towns on the Elbe, Magdeburg, Torgau, Dresden, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Lauenburg etc are interesting, interesting too is to walk over bridges over the Elbe....did that Dresden and Magdeburg.

Posted by
91 posts

lyw:
Your bicycling trip sounds nice. I was curious how many miles Dresden to Magdeburg was, and according to my computer map, the bide ride was about 140 or 150 miles. This does sound very doable over a 9-day trip...and very pretty. Also, I was impressed that you used a tour company that gets your luggage to where it needs to be. You could never carry that kind of stuff on a bike.

Happy trails...

Posted by
38 posts

LuvToTravel: We wound up with close to 210 miles, but did take some detours, including to Schloss Moritzburg, Radebeul (Karl May Museum), the Hugo Junkers museum in Dessau, some family-history sites in Magdeburg, a nature preserve, etc. Most of the rides were in the low 20 mile range and the longest day was over 40. It is invaluable having someone take the luggage - we still had panniers, but just day stuff in them. We'd done a trip along the Mosel a few years ago and carried everything with us, I liked this method a lot better. It's apparently fairly common in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. We'd gone with this particular company a few years ago, just a 3 day trip to see how it would work, that went to Rothenburg, so we were pretty confident that the longer trip would be fine.

Posted by
31 posts

Thanks for the trip report. I’m considering a bike trip in The Netherlands/Belgium in the near future. Question: how do you handle touring a church, museum, etc. in regards to bike theft? Do you bring a lock or is their not a great worry? I’d hate to walk out of a church 10miles into a 40 mile day to find my bike gone! Thanks again.

Posted by
38 posts

KW: We had locks for the bikes, the tour company provided them. When we have rented from a train station those came with locks too. We always locked up and took the panniers (fairly light anyway) and bike computers with us.