Rhine Cycle Route

A jour­ney through ro­mant­ic land­scapes and Rhine met­ro­pol­ises: the most ex­cit­ing stretch of the 1,320-kilo­metre Rhine Cycle Route runs through NRW.

The Rhine is 15,000 years old and is still running strong: over 700 metres wide in some North Rhine-Westphalia stretches, the river flows from its source in the Swiss Alps to its estuary in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Active tourists can go with the flow from beginning to end by cycling along the international Rhine Cycle Route. Stretching a total of 1,320 kilometres, it runs through Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

On its journey to the sea, Europe’s most famous river runs through North Rhine-Westphalia for 226 kilometres: this is the most exciting section of the route. Here, every single kilometre of the Rhine offers a new panorama. Holidaymakers and day-trippers can discover the scenic and cultural diversity on both sides of the river from Bad Honnef to the Dutch border – from the romantic Siebengebirge, with the legendary Drachenfels hill and Drachenburg Castle, through the three Rhine metropolises of Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf, with their rich traditions, and the industrial city of Duisburg, to the expansive landscape of the Lower Rhine. Here, cyclists will pass sights such as the castle of Schloss Schwanenburg in Kleve and the towns of Emmerich am Rhein and Rees with their Rhine promenades.

The route runs on both banks of the Rhine, with the majority on well-built, cycle-friendly paths with standardised signposts.