maps europe trip

[megandh]

hello there,

thank you to everyone who gave us advice on our newbie thread a few months ago.... we now have our bikes and panniers.... just need to purchase those bomb-proof tyres as suggested and few other bits and pieces....gladly we are looking reasonably lightweight at the moment.

we are now trying to look into the route we will take.... as mentioned previously we are planning a large 6 month trip through europe . including scandanavia, western europe, parts of eastern and hopefully down to italy, spain & greece, of course depending on time and money.

We got a general europe map, but i am guessing may need seperate maps for each country in better detail, of course for such a large trip this might be quite heavy needing so many maps. So basically just some advice on the best maps for a large tour and how to go about it the lightest way?

We were also quite keen to have info on cycle paths, where possible. I have looked on the internet, good information on netherlands cycle paths and germany(thinking of putting info on cd and then print out as we go through country). Are there any maps or other websites out there with good detail of that kind of info?
Probably difficult to answer, but have hit a deadend on the net.

Cheers everyone, and thanks again for previous advice, and we are starting to get very excited, even though 5 or so months away, but it will rush upon us i am sure.

Thanks

handmeg

 

[xilios]

Hello again
For maps my wife and I usually get the Michelin 1:200.000 maps,they are easy to use, can be found almost everywhere, and some even show campsites. Since you'll be doing a very long tour you can mail the maps back home when finished.
For cycling routes, check out the north sea cycling route I have heard many good things about this route.
Also I'm finding Google earth very handy, just downloaded it, It's very interesting as it shows the elevation of the roads as you go across with the mouse. I'm in the process of finding some routes though parts of Italy for our next tour.
In Holland and Germany it's nice to have a general map but you really dont need one as soon as you find a cycling path follow it to the next junction and there you'll find a map for the next section, for further information you can check out the tourist office's in each country very easy and everyone speaks english.
Riding along the Rhine last fall we found maps all along our route, there is a photo on our site.
Maps of Greece are hard to come by I used the Michelin 737 map last year,1/700.000, and I'm going to use it again next spring, dont trust the camping info on that map its outdated.
For camping check out interhike it was very helpfull on our last tour.
If you have any more question please don't hasitate we'll be happy to help.
cheers

 

[limerickman]

hello there,

thank you to everyone who gave us advice on our newbie thread a few months ago.... we now have our bikes and panniers.... just need to purchase those bomb-proof tyres as suggested and few other bits and pieces....gladly we are looking reasonably lightweight at the moment.

we are now trying to look into the route we will take.... as mentioned previously we are planning a large 6 month trip through europe . including scandanavia, western europe, parts of eastern and hopefully down to italy, spain & greece, of course depending on time and money.

We got a general europe map, but i am guessing may need seperate maps for each country in better detail, of course for such a large trip this might be quite heavy needing so many maps. So basically just some advice on the best maps for a large tour and how to go about it the lightest way?

We were also quite keen to have info on cycle paths, where possible. I have looked on the internet, good information on netherlands cycle paths and germany(thinking of putting info on cd and then print out as we go through country). Are there any maps or other websites out there with good detail of that kind of info?
Probably difficult to answer, but have hit a deadend on the net.

Cheers everyone, and thanks again for previous advice, and we are starting to get very excited, even though 5 or so months away, but it will rush upon us i am sure.

Thanks

handmeg

Online maps can be sourced at www.viamichelin.com

Just in put the destination that you deperating from - and the destination you're going to, and it Michelin will do the rest for you.

Hope this helps.

 

[blackbird05]

Hey megandh, glad the planning's going so well
We were worried about the same thing when we were preparing for our eurotour, and it ended up working itself out quite nicely. We basically just bought one large-scale foldable map of a large area that we were starting in (Northern Europe, fr example). We'd buy a new large map whenever we entered a large new area (in the end, about three maps covered all of our Europe trip). These large maps gave us a good sense of general destinations, relative timelines, surrounding towns etc. Then once we got to the start of our route, we'd find the nearest tourist bureau and ask about local bike trails, pamphlets etc. Often you could get small-scale pamphlet maps of the local area for free, especially in smaller towns and in eastern europe. These were more than adequate in terms of route-choosing, and were disposable once we were finished with a particular area after a couple of days biking. Then we'd repeat the process at another local tourist bureau... If we found a really nice set of maps specifically for biking that would be useful for the next couple of weeks, we'd buy them. It may sound a little clunky, but after a few tries we'd streamlined our fact-finding tourist bureau visits so they rarely took more than 30 minutes. Other pros were that a) it was cheap, b) we tossed all the used pamphlets rather than carrying around huge stacks of maps, and c) it gave us a chance to interact with local people. The interactions were a huge draw; we had some great conversations, and in small towns especially people loved to hear about our trip and help us out any way they could. They knew from experience where the best cheap places to eat were, the best roads to take, and often shared they favourite hangouts and destinations in the surrounding area.
Finally, if we ended up buying a local cycling map for a well-known bike tour (the Danube river route, or one of the greenways for example), we could make that money stretch by exchanging maps with bike tourists we met following the route in the opposite direction. We'd give them our used maps (which showed their planned route), and they'd give us theirs (which showed our planned route). Voila, neat and tidy. No money spent, no extra bulk carried
Lol, though I still managed to horde enough "favourite" maps to have to send a package home by post...
Finally, in terms of route ideas, take a took at http://www.topbicycle.com/CEBicycleTours.htm
It's a commercial tour company, but there are some good general route ideas there for inspiration.
Cheers, and enjoy!
blackbird