Our route: See the bottom of the page for a revision!

Our cycling journey will begin near Limburg where we will ride along the beautiful Lahn River to Koblenz and then continue up the Moselle River, a route that we have wanted to ride for many years. Riding the Moselle will connect us to a point along a "Dutch" route that goes from Eindhoven to Barcelona. From Barcelona we will take the ferry to Genova, ride through N Italy to Venice and if we feel strong, tackle the Alps (Via Claudia Augusta or Alpe Adria) back to Germany.

Last year, while riding on the Dutch "Amsterdam-Prague" route through Czech Republic, we learned about the vast network of cycling routes throughout Europe that have been created by Dutch cyclists. The shear volume has made our choice difficult. We have finally chosen the Barcelona route created by Cycling Unlimited (founded by cyclist Benjaminse Uitgeverij).

We will join this route to Barcelona near Nancy, France when we complete the Moselle River Trail.

We like these Dutch routes as they try to search for the most beautiful, quiet roads and bike paths and create map/guide books (with GPS tracks) in the style of the German Bikeline series. Mary Ellen has spent the winter learning German to help her decipher Bikeline guides, but now we have the challenge of deciphering route books that are written in Dutch!

The guide books from Cycling Unlimited are waiting for us in Germany.

The only glitch was that the guidebooks needed to be ordered in Europe - so Cora came to our rescue and ordered them for us. We can't wait to start studying the books when we get to Germany.

**CHANGE OF PLANS
Since arriving in Germany, we have realized that the route we had planned is not what we want to do this year. Reality set in as we considered the logistics of our plan. The route to Barcelona (which we still want to do some day) takes us in a westerly direction and away from Italy. The practicalities of getting to northern Italy were proving to be time consuming and cumbersome. It made sense when we initially planned this route as we were going to carry on to Morocco from Barcelona, but not Italy.

As well, when considering the challenges of the combined destinations of Barcelona and the Alps, we though that the strenuous demands of the Central Massif in France with riding over the Alps was one challenge too many.

So what are our priorities for this trip? - we decided that we really want to cycle and tour in Italy and it would be good for Mary Ellen to spend more time in Germany and continue to work on her German language skills.

So, here is the plan so far:
We will ride from our friend's home to Limburg, take the train to Frankfurt/Aschauffensburg and ride the Main R to Wertheim and then follow the Tauber River to Rothenburg, then following the Romantic Road/Via Claudia Augusta to Fussen and over the Alps to Verona. This will give us more time to focus on northern Italy and then when we are ready to head back, we'll either follow the Alpe Adria to Salzburg (over the Alps again) or ride through the hills of Slovenia to Austria and back to Frankfurt.

We love the freedom and flexibility of cycle touring, especially when we have 3 months at our disposal. So, it goes without saying, that this may not be the final word. We always enjoy hearing tips from other travellers and locals and with that in mind, we will probably tweak our route as we go along. Stay tuned..

These are the Bikeline books that we will be using for our revised route.

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