From our guests Ann and Frederick
In September 2024, we had the pleasure of welcoming Ann and Frederick from the USA for their 11-day cycle tour around Lake Constance. After retiring, the two discovered cycling as a way to stay fit and have already undertaken numerous cycling tours, including in Europe.
This time they were looking for a new challenge - and found it in the picturesque region around Lake Constance. The route took them through historic towns such as Constance and Stein am Rhein, past apple orchards, the famous Rhine Falls and the island of Mainau.
In their travel report, Ann and Frederick share their experiences and impressions of this unforgettable tour on e-bikes through one of Europe's most beautiful regions.
Arrival
After my husband and I retired, we took up bicycling as a way to keep fit. We usually ride dedicated bicycle trails around the US but have also taken more than 20 bicycling tours in Europe. We are now in our 80s and the description of this 11-day cycling tour around Lake Constance enticed us to enjoy one more beautiful tour - especially since we would be able to rent e-assisted bicycles for the trip.
We booked the tour through Biketours.com, including an extra day before the tour start and another one at the end to allow non-stressful travel from the Zurich airport to and from Constance. A few weeks before our tour, Radweg-Reisen, the company operating the tour, emailed us further information about our tour, our hotel list and, especially important, the GPS maps for each day’s cycling. While still in the US, I downloaded these GPS routes into the RidewithGPS app on my cell phone so I could use them for navigating our daily rides. The following is a brief description of some daily highlights of this well planned and thoroughly enjoyable tour.
We arrived the day before the tour start and after checking into our hotel, we picked up our bicycles and the tour information. We used the tour “arrival” day to see the beautiful gardens on the island of Mainau as well as visiting some sites in the “altstadt”, the historic district, of Constance. Even in September, the gardens were filled with colorful displays, amazing tree specimens in the arboretum and beautiful butterflies in the butterfly house.
Day 1
Our first biking day took us out of Constance and over to the island of Richenau.
The tour continued with a short ride through small vacation and fishing villages and past many gardens and greenhouses. From Richenau, we had a ferry ride across Lake Constance to Gaienhofen. Back on our bikes we rode, mostly on a separate bike path, to the beautifully preserved Renaissance town of Stein am Rhein.
We slowly walked through the busy town, viewing the well maintained architecture and frescoes on the buildings before continuing to our destination of Gailingen.
Day 2
The highlights of our second day were a visit to the Jewish Museum in Gailingen and, later, a boat trip up to the base of the Rhein Falls with a chance to climb a rock overlooking the falls.
We enjoyed the boat tour but skipped the climb, saving our strength to push our heavy e-assisted bikes partway up the steep hill to a large parking lot.
Back on our bikes, we had an easy 6-mile ride back to Gailigngen for the night.
Day 3
Day 3’s ride was back along the Rhein to Stein am Rhein and then across the river to follow the Rhein back to Constance.
Our route took us past many beautiful apple orchards and ended on a newly upgraded bike path leading into Constance.
The very modern WC along the path was impressive. It would be wonderful if more such facilities were available along popular cycling trails.
Day 4
It was raining lightly as we left Constance on our fourth cycling day wearing rain gear.
We encountered a detour before reaching the entrance to Mainau and were glad to have cell phone data and Google maps to help us navigate around and back to our GPS route. We were also pleased we had visited Mainau earlier and could continue through the waterfront park up to Dinglesdorf. Here, our route turned inland and gently climbed through beautiful tall forests and some small towns on the way to Radolfzell.
After stopping for lunch in a delicious bakery in Markelfingen, the sun appeared for the rest of our ride. We had a lovely afternoon stroll around the old part of town, admiring the Our Dear Lady Cathedral, the Kappedaschele fountain celebrating carnival and the city garden along the old city wall.
Day 5
Our next cycling day, over the peninsula and back to the shores of Lake Constance, was short but busy.
The hillsides were filled with large apple orchards and the bike path along the lake was quite busy.
After arriving at our hotel in Untenuhldingen, we locked up our bikes and walked back to visit the “Lake Dwellers”, Pfahlbauten Museum. We spent several hours learning about the civilizations that built their houses on pilings here and on other European lakes 6000 and 3000 years ago. The displays included a lot of information about the discovery of these pilings and the archeology that has revealed more about these peoples’ lives.
Day 6
Our 6th day was also short on cycling but busy as we visited the old castle in Meersburg and then continued on to Friedrichshafen, our destination for the night. The tour of Meersburg Castle, one of the oldest still inhabited castle in Germany, was well organized with arrows directing one through the different rooms and exhibits.
We enjoyed lunch at a restaurant on the beautiful promenade along Lake Constance in Friedrichshafen before leaving our bikes at our hotel and walking over to the Zeppelin Museum. We spent several hours there, learning just about everything one would want to know about the development and history of zeppelins.
Day 7
After a foggy start for our next day’s ride, we passed more orchards and arrived at the historic island of Lindau.
We biked over to the beautiful Rathaus with its painted frescoes of the town’s history and then down to the seaport where we ate lunch with a view of the port and historic lighthouse.
We continued on to Bregenz and our hotel. It was just a couple of blocks walk further uphill to the entrance to the cable cars that took us up to the top of Pfander, the mountain overlooking Bregenz and Lake Constance. We enjoyed the views from the cable car and the panoramic views from the mountaintop before heading back to our hotel.
Day 8
Our 8th day of cycling was my favorite biking day of the whole tour.
We coasted down from our hotel and rejoined the bike path along the lake, continued through a nature preserve and across the Rhein. The route then followed the Rhein upstream to the town of Altstatten where we boarded a cog railway to carry us up further into the mountains.
After reaching Gais, we resumed cycling, mostly downhill through the beautiful, green Swiss countryside, passing lush fields with grazing cows and neat farmhouses with beautiful flower boxes.
After crossing a high bridge over the gorge of the Sitter River, we arrived at the edge of the Cloister (historic) district of St. Gallen. Because of the crowded town center, and the cobblestone pavement, we
walked our bikes up, through the plaza to our huge hotel, the Einstein.
Day 9
The next day, Sunday, was spent touring several of the highlights of this beautiful town.
We visited the Textile Museum, the St. Gall Cathedral, the St. Gall Abbey with its amazing collection of historic books and interesting historical displays in the vault, rode the funicular, Muhleggbahn, up the hill overlooking St. Gallen and walked some of the Panorama walk.
We were definitely ready to be back on our bikes by the time we relaxed, had dinner and headed to bed.
Day 10
On our last day, when checking out of our hotel in St. Gallen, the hotel presented me with a birthday card and small jar of their special cherry jam. What a nice way to begin celebrating my 82nd birthday!
Our route back to Constance was lovely and interesting, especially a sculpture at the edge of Romanshorn, depicting the progress of man’s transportation, ending with a sitting man holding a steering wheel. Fred thought there should be one more stage - a man on an e-bike. I took a photo of him leading the parade before continuing on to Constance.
After arriving in Constance, we had lunch in the plaza in front of the Munster Cathedral and then headed over to our hotel as rain clouds moved in. When we opened the door to our room, there was a table set with a small cake, fruit and a birthday card. What a wonderful and delicious surprise for my birthday - and sweet memories of our tour!
