Tour Europe by Bike with Teen Treks!

This summer, see Britain, France, Belgium and Holland the best way -- by bike!

 

On this incredible 4-country European Phantom tour, you’ll bike through major cities and quaint villages in Britain, France, Belgium, and Holland in 28 days.  If you've never been to Europe, this is a wonderful introduction, and if you're an old hand at international travel, it's still a jam-packed trip you'll never forget.

 

Spend 3 days each in London, Paris, and Amsterdam, plus visit beautiful Bruges and Ghent.

Get to know the music, history, landscape, traditions and food in each of these fantastic, bike-friendly countries.  You'll visit world-famous museums like the Louvre and monuments like Stonehenge, eat at great pubs and local restaurants, stay in hostels and hotels, and do a little camping out between the cities.

On your first day, you'll visit Windsor Castle and head out toward Stonehenge. After your first taste of the English countryside, a ferry will take you to France.

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 You'll see the Notre Dame Cathedral in Rouen, and then bike along the Seine, visiting Monet's house and gardens at Giverny, touring the spectacular Palace of Versailles, and continuing on into Paris.

The Eiffel Tower is only the beginning of your adventures in Paris!  You'll also see the Arc de Triomphe and the rest of the Champs-Elysees, breathtaking architecture at Montmartre, and much, much more.  You'll dine in charming sidewalk cafes and immerse yourself in Paris' one-of-a-kind culture.

A train will carry you to Belgium, where you’ll bike between the beautiful cities of Bruges and Ghent, seeing more stunning medieval architecture, enjoying more delicious food -- including Belgian chocolate! -- and traveling alongside the canals that run through these cities. 

Then it’s on to the Netherlands to bike through Amsterdam, a city with centuries of history and culture, plenty of quirk, and, believe it or not, the occasional bicycle traffic jam. You’ll visit the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Anne Frank House here. 

Another ferry will bring you back to Great Britain to cycle through green, rolling East Anglia, with a stop in Cambridge, and finally you’ll spend 3 days exploring cosmopolitan London before your flight home. 

Our European Phantom Trek features moderate biking (30-50 miles per day) and camping as well as stays in hostels and hotels.  Teenagers entering grades 10-12 can enjoy this amazing tour, which is loaded beginning to end with things to see and do.  We’re running two European Phantom treks this summer:

• June 25 - July 24 (trip code EP-JN25)
• July 2 - July 31 (trip code EP-J2)

Slots are filling quickly on these popular trips, so reserve your spot now!

Visit TeenTreks.com to apply to bike the European Phantom with us, or sign up for one of our other super trips: Across America, New York City – Montreal, Pacific Northwest, California Coast, New England Shore, Amsterdam-Paris, Maine Coast -- and more!

New Trek for 2014: Green Ireland

We have two new routes this year!  Check out some of the exciting (and beautiful, and all-around awesome) things you'll be able to see and do on our Green Ireland Trek:

Bike through 4 distinct regions of Ireland: Clare, Kerry, Cork, and the Midlands.

Tour medieval castles, the Ring of Kerry, and the Cliffs of Moher.

Get to know charming rural villages and the lush Irish landscape.

Visit bustling Dublin and Galway.

This 28-day trek will take you through Ireland’s major cities and the gorgeous countryside it’s known for.  We’ll travel on bicycle paths and small roads, sometimes sharing them with sheep and cows (yes, really!), climb through Bunratty Castle and other medieval sites, look out across the Atlantic Ocean from the Cliffs of Moher, ride through the green hills of Connemara, and discover traditional Irish music.

You’ll enjoy welcoming Gaelic hospitality in small cities like Limerick, Kilarney, Cork, Kinsale, and Clifden, and get to visit Galway and Dublin, both world-class cities.  Along the way, you’ll experience thousands of years of Celtic history, music, culture, and food.

This moderately challenging ride (30-50 miles a day; some hills, but not too many) is best suited for high schoolers entering grades 10 through 12. We’ll be running Green Ireland June 25 - July 22 (trip code GI-JN25) and July 2 - July 29 (trip code GI-J2).

Visit TeenTreks.com to apply to be one of the first trekkers to bike Ireland with us, or sign up for one of our other super trips: Across America, Pacific Northwest, European Phantom, California Coast, New England Shore, Amsterdam-Paris, New York-Montreal -- and more!

European Phantom's Weekend in Cambridge and London

Kings College, Cambridge

A weekend recap from Taylor (Leader):

The European Phantom trekkers are in London! After three great cycling days through England, the group has arrived at its final destination.

After getting off our ferry from the Netherlands to England on Wednesday, we biked the 30 miles from Harwich to Sudbury before lunch, arriving earlier than planned. We passed a bowling alley on the way into town and the group enthusiastically decided to stop and bowl a few games. (Jordan and Sean were the winners. Their prize was a jacket potato.) That night at our campsite we had a tasty soup-and-salad dinner and then played a few rounds of cards before bed. The next morning we woke up to our first rain of the trip, which fortunately stopped by the time we'd finished breakfast. The day turned hot and sunny as we rode to Cambridge. We arrived late afternoon, settled in to our hotel, then cooked burgers in a nearby park. 

Friday was dedicated to exploring Cambridge. After an all-you-can-eat breakfast at the hotel, we went downtown to walk the winding, narrow streets and see the beautiful old stone buildings of the 31 colleges that make up Cambridge University. We stopped into the gorgeous King's College Chapel, built in the 15th Century. Next to the chapel itself was an exhibit on its construction, showing the mathematics behind its vaulted ceilings and the process of making stained glass windows. Pretty incredible. From there, we had a picnic lunch, and headed to the river to check out the local past-time: punting. (Punting is a style of boating in which a person stands at the back of a low 12-passenger boat and pushes the boat down a shallow canal with a long stick.) After laughing at the other tourists struggling to move their punting boats, we opted for a guided punting tour of the city. Unfortunately, just as we were leaving the docks, our guide dropped his punting stick and hit leader Kate on the head. We had to stop the tour to get Kate checked out, but fortunately she was OK (though it sure looked like it hurt). After our punting misadventure, we went to a play of Cymbeline at the Downing College Gardens, part of the annual outdoor summer Shakespeare Festival. The show was really entertaining and well-done.

In front of Trinity College

Punting guides and novices along the River Cam

This morning we biked about 20 miles toward London, before stopping for lunch and catching a train the rest of the way into the city. When we arrived, a friendly cyclist helped us find our hostel in the drizzle, riding through traffic on bike/bus lanes shared with iconic red double-decker buses. Tonight we took advantage of the hostel's kitchen and cooked ourselves a hearty pesto pasta. And now we're getting ready to hit the streets tomorrow, as we conclude our trip with two days of London site-seeing.

European Phantom Dutch Photo Blast

Here are some photos of the group's travels in the Netherlands...

Boat tour view

Boat tour

The Anne Frank Museum and Annex

Pancakes for dinner, why of course!

in the Torture Museum

Dinner time!

a well deserved afternoon at the beach in Den Haag...

The main beach area.  And that majestic building? It's a hotel-the famous Kurhaus Hotel to be exact.

The living to fine and easy in the Netherlands!...

European Phantom Photos from Versailles and Paris

We've got a delightful update from Taylor and Kate about the Trekkers' time in France:

 

"The European Phantom crew had an unforgettable three days in Paris. We spent Saturday morning at the palace of Versailles seeing how the French royalty used to live (among lots of gold items and giant paintings of themselves.) Then we rode to our hostel in the city. We were lucky to discover a concert in the plaza nearby, so we grabbed a quick dinner and checked it out.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon on a walking tour, during which our tour guide told us tons of stories about Paris' history and monuments. (Did you know that on statues, the position of the horse's legs tells how they died? The front legs in the air means that the rider died in battle, four legs down means that they died of natural causes, and one front leg and one back leg up means that they died of unnatural causes, like assassination. Cool, right?) 

Putting legs to good use on the walking tour...

For our final day in Paris, we first went to The Louvre, where we spent a couple hours admiring the amazing and plentiful masterpieces by some of the most influential artists in the history of art! After visiting the beautiful Mona Lisa, we let ourselves get lost in the art (literally) as we wandered down the halls within the humongous confinements of the museum. After seeing more pieces from eras such as the Renaissance, Ancient Greece and Egypt, and the Medieval ages, we left the Louvre and rode our bikes to the Eiffel Tower!

 

Sunday evening was the highlight of all our time in Paris, because we went to see the fireworks at the Eiffel Tour in honor of Bastille Day. It was really amazing to see the tower silhouetted by the fireworks behind it, then lit up with flashing lights. Though we had seen it lit up by an incredible  firework display the night before, seeing it up close gave it a whole new beauty. After many failed attempts to get a decent group photo (sans bunny ears, goofy faces), we headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.

Fireworks from Bastille Day

For our final dinner, we decided to splurge a bit in Montmatre, a lively and showy district where Moulin Rouge originated from. We went to a traditional French restaurant where many of us had our first taste of escargot. We had a delicious mix of foods which included foie gras, scallops , a hearty and flavorful beef stew, and"beautiful steak" (as described truthfully in the menu). After dinner we concluded our exciting day with an assortment of scrumptious pastries in downtown Montmatre.

As of now we are back on the road (or rather the rails) to Ghent, Belgium!

Au revoir, France! Till next time :)  "

-Kate and Taylor

European Phantom Hits Versailles and Giverney-Getting Closer to Paris!

The Trekkers are slowly moving towards Paris, and are certainly taking a beautiful northern route into the city!

The pond that inspired many paintings

Lush flower gardens in front of Monet's home

First stop, Claude Monet's home and refuge in Giverny. This is an amazing home, not only for the extensive flower gardens and pond area, but for the home being kept in such great care-it is as if Monet could walk in at any moment.

Today the group will take a step into Marie Antoinette's decadent world at Versailles Palace.  No backyard will ever seem the same after seeing the ex-royals' boating area, hunting grounds, exquisite landscaping, marble fountains and private accommodations for both the King and Queen.  The massive tapestries, gilded halls, ballrooms and painting collections tucked away inside aren't bad either...

The roads are a lot less hilly than south England so the riding has been much more comfortable. C'est fantastique en France!