2intandem.net

Bike Express do an interesting idea – they pick you up at any of a number of uk pick up points (our nearest would be Potters Bar on the M25), and take you to any of a number of destinations in the mediterranean area. You travel by coach with a large trailer behind towing the bikes. You can roll your own trip, picking your own times and outbound/return journey, and your return can be from a different place, allowing you to do a non-circular cycling trip. There are quite a few destinations but they are mostly in France and Spain.

Train is another option, but having looked at Europe travel by train, a tandem is a problem. It would need to be splittable, something you can do with a Thorn tandem which has couplings on the tubes so it becomes the size of a solo bike (or perhaps more like 2 solo bikes). See here for more details about ‘training’ it with a bike.

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Coaches don’t appear to be an option for this – they are much slower than rail.

See these flight price examples from Expedia and Opodo
Compare with this example for a train fare from London to Cologne

Booking trains online to Europe seems a nightmare compared to flights. I could not find fare prices to Warsaw at all! The best route seems to be London-Brussels (Eurostar) – Cologne (Thalys) – Warsaw (overnight train). From what I could glean, the Cologne to Warsaw fare is around £80.

This means that the all up price for a train is roughly £200. The all up flight price is less at roughly £150 – all depending on when you book. The train takes longer – leave some time late morning, then take the overnight train in the evening and arrive next morning, so nearly 24 hours. Plane takes 4 hours or so.

The positive news is that the train does not cost not a lot more. You can take bikes on the train (presumably not on the flights without loads of extra cost), but a tandem is only going to be possible if it can be folded down to the size of a single bike, then ideally put in a custom bike bag of some sort. Bikes can typically be taken in a bike back on the luggage space, or if hand carried as a folding bike, they more or less count as hand luggage.

Seat61 has some useful information about taking bikes. It also has details of travelling from London to Poland by train, (including details for Warsaw).

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Today we toured To Horsey, Sea Palling and Hickling Broad.
We travelled from Clippesby via Thurne to West Somerton.

We continued to Horsey where we stopped for lunch at Horsey Windpump on the edge of Horsey Mere.

Views of Horsey Windpump

Views of the dyke and boats along the edge of Horsey Mere

We continued on to Waxham Barn where we stopped for a coffee and a cake, and to visit the barn.


Views of Waxham Barn

Steve last visited Sea Palling many years ago during his pre teen years, when he spent considerable time on the beach with bucket and spade! It was interesting to contrast the childhood memories with the actual visit and perspective many years later as an adult. So much seems different when you are grown up!

We continued to Hickling where we stopped to visit and walk around the Nature Reserve. We loved the sense of peace and tranquility – it felt as though you were miles from anywhere…


Views of Hickling Nature Reserve

We returned home via Potter Heigham and Thurne – by now a very familiar leg of our touring.

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Today we took a shorter trip via Stokesby and Mautby to Filby Broad. Filby Broad is one of the Trinity broads, which are not connected to the river system and are used as storage reservoirs.

As we passed Mautby we visited Thrigby Post Windmill, which was built in around 1790 by Robert Woolmer to grind wheat for the Thrigby Estate.

More details of the history of the windmill can be found on Wikipedia here.

We then toured via Thrigby to Filby Broad.

Views of Filby Broad

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