The Road to Copenhagen

Pedalling north from the Hook of Holland

The route opens on the Dutch coast and pushes north along the North Sea cycle network — one of the most generously engineered bits of cycling infrastructure anywhere in Europe. Within a couple of days you're crossing the Afsluitdijk, the long sea wall separating the IJsselmeer from the Wadden Sea, before threading through the nature reserve that straddles the Dutch–German border. The country opens out: enormous fields, wider sky, and a horizon that's mostly water and weather. Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven come and go, working ports rather than postcards, before the route arrives at the Kiel Canal — the busy shipping artery that links the North Sea to the Baltic. You ride alongside it long enough to take the scale in.

From the Baltic to Zealand

After Kiel, the Baltic cycle path runs beside white-sand beaches towards the German coast. A series of small ferry crossings handle what bridges don't, and the final one drops you at Rødby on the Danish island of Lolland. Denmark feels different almost immediately — quieter roads, gentler light, and the first proper undulations of the trip, though "hills" is a generous word for them. National Route 6 carries you through the countryside on the closing day and into Copenhagen itself, ending in the design capital with what will probably be a Carlsberg.

A trip with two distinctive features makes this stand out. First, the cycling is overwhelmingly on dedicated, well-maintained cycle path rather than shared road — a rare luxury on a twelve-day tour and a real release from traffic noise. Second, the water: dykes, the Kiel Canal, working windfarm yards, North Sea liners on the horizon, and the rhythm of small ferry hops as you island-hop up through Denmark. It's a coastal, maritime sort of cycling rather than a mountainous one.

The practical side

The 2026 departure runs 24 June to 6 July at £2,245 per person, with a £200 Spring Sale discount available using code SPRING26. The 2027 departure runs 22 June to 4 July at the same headline price. Prices are based on a shared room; the single supplement is £595, selectable during booking.

Accommodation is twin-share, bed and breakfast, in a deliberate mix of characterful local hotels through the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia, and trusted chain hotels where reliability and secure bike storage matter more than charm. The final night in Copenhagen is typically a city-centre hotel near the central station for onward travel — comfortable but compact, in the way Scandinavian city hotels tend to be. Upgrades for that last night can be arranged on request.

Breakfasts come with the hotels. The support team supplies a packed lunch each day — fresh sandwiches, pasties or grab-and-go items from local bakeries, with cafés used when the weather makes eating outside unappealing. Evening meals are at your own cost and usually taken communally, though you're free to opt out. The support van carries emergency gels and bars; bringing your own preferred energy food is sensible for a trip of this length.

Best suited to riders comfortable with consecutive days in the saddle who like the idea of a long, linear, point-to-point tour ending somewhere genuinely worth arriving in — and who appreciate cake and wheat beer along the way.