Since the Danube cycle path in Austria is one of the most traveled cycle ways in Europe, there are plenty of tour operators offering holiday packages today. Most of them offer self-guided cycling holidays. The prices depend on the type of accommodation that you chose. The higher the chosen category - the better the hotels are.

However, they don't tell the place that you will stay in each night before the booking. So you might stay overnight in a small village along the cycle path where there is no restaurant with an English menu. If you don't speak German, you better take a package from a higher category.

Hotels of higher quality are often easier to find. Finding your hotel is another challenge sometimes. The maps that are sent to you beforehand, although perfect for cycling, sometimes don't show the way to the hotel where you are accommodated during the tour. Our advice is to visit your preferred online-map website (Google Maps, map24, Yahoo! Maps, ...) and print out a street map of the area around every hotel that you are booked in. Your cycle tour operator usually sends you a hotel list beforehand.

If you prefer to travel in a group of like-minded cyclists or simply feel more comfortable with having a guide around, go for a guided cycling holiday (sometimes also: escorted cycling holiday). Again, there are holiday packages at all price levels. In general, local tour operators provide cycle tours at lower prices. Contrariwise, they usually don't have a representative in your country and so are harder to approach.

We have listed a few tour operators here. As always, we don't recommend any operator or holiday package particularly, nor do we get any commission.

• Mercurio Bike Travel, Zwickau/Germany: They cycle the Danube from Passau to Vienna but shorten the route at unpleasant sections, English speaking groups only, an airport shuttle service is included, small groups of up to 15 cyclists only
• Explore, Farnborough/UK: Offer a cycling holiday along the Danube from Passau to Vienna, pick up from Vienna at tour start is included, a sag wagon is not provided, guide and bicycles are from a Polish tour operator
• Rotalis, Zorneding/Germany: From Munich via Passau to Krems (situated 50 miles before Vienna), including a side trip into Czech Republic, mostly German speaking people travel with Rotalis - perfect to improve your German

• Eurobike (Eurofun Touristik), Obertrum/Austria: Several holiday packages differing in the length of their daily cyclelegs are available. Cycle from Passau to Vienna within 5 to 10 days.
• Eurocycle (Rad & Reisen), Vienna/Austria: Designed its Danube cycle tour packages along different themes and levels of difficulty.
• Oberösterreich Touristik, Linz/Austria: They got even more cycle tours along the Danube on offer.

If you prefer to work with a British intermediary, have a look at Exodus, hf holidays and Headwater. Exodus and HF are resellers, Headwater most probably as well – meaning that a local tour operator does everything. There is no company representative on the bike trail. The advantage is that you should get a tour info package that was reviewed by a British person before.

Some last hints for your cycle tour

If you go on a self-guided tour or go completely on your own, it is recommended to start cycling in Passau within Monday to Friday. Many people start cycling in Passau on a Saturday or Sunday. So the hotels along the cycle path have peak days where many guests crash in. This usually makes it a bit uncomfortable for those who have not pre-booked accommodation as well as it forces tour operators to accommodate late booking guests into less convenient places. Additionally, you share the cycle path with more people on those peak days.

Also, if you decide to do a self-guided tour, make sure that your tour starts in Passau, not in Schärding. The later, a beautiful but small town nearby Passau, is more difficult to reach than Passau.

Comments

You may miss a few companies on this page. We try to list the tour operators here. We publish resellers only when it makes sense for our readers. However, feel free to tell us about a specific tour operator that should be listed here.

Advert