Luxembourg Guided Motorcycle Tour

Four nights in Luxembourg, guided, from a single base hotel in Vianden with three free riding days built around it.

Vianden sits in a wooded gorge below a castle that was rebuilt from ruins in the twentieth century and is among the largest fortified houses west of the Rhine, with the river running through the middle of the town. The route out from Folkestone runs by Eurotunnel and Bastogne, which puts the first war memorial on the schedule before the base hotel does.

The free days are suggested rather than fixed. One runs to Arlon and Esch-sur-Sure, a village inside a loop of river with a ruined castle above it. Another takes in Clervaux Castle, the Malmedy massacre memorial and the Bastogne War Museum, all of it ground fought over in the Ardennes offensive of the winter of 1944. The third crosses into Germany for the Moselle wine region, with Traben-Trarbach and Cochem Castle on it, which makes a full day of about two hundred miles.

Four nights of bed and breakfast, four evening meals and the return Eurotunnel crossing are included, along with GPX routes and a daily itinerary; fuel, parking, admissions and the vignette are not, and riders bring their own bike. Five days from a single base means no packing and unpacking, which suits a short trip: three countries are within an easy day’s ride of the hotel. The Ardennes roads are forested, twisting and very lightly trafficked, which is the whole attraction. Vianden itself is small enough to walk round in an evening, with a chairlift up to a viewpoint above the castle.