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Excellent full-on tour of Jordan, with its wonderful variety of scenic and historic attractions. The Jordanians were very welcoming, friendly and honest people. Organisation and itinerary were great, and our guide Nidal was excellent.

This is a super trip if you are up for 'moderate' level cycling, want to visit a new country and are interested in seeing a village lifestyle that may well soon disappear. It is full of small but magical moments - overtaking horses and carts, waves from villagers, passing hi-fives with children and visits to the baker. the blacksmith, the mill, and being shown round a fortified church and a ruined abbey by the local priest. The scenery is great - for the first couple of days we would be cycling alongside snow-capped mountains. That then turns into the lush green hills of Transylvania. The first three days have the longest routes and we were glad that we'd done some hill training before the trip but we coped - although we were usually last we weren't far behind! The routes are well planned and there is less traffic in Transylvania than on our previous cycle trips in western Europe. Some of the dirt roads are being tarmacked and will soon be smoother rides. The dinners in the small hotels / guests houses were very good as were our picnics and snacks during the day. The fortified churches are really interesting and, as a keen photographer, there were plenty of opportunities for good photos along the way. Btw, the bikes were fine!

1st post pandemic trip, originally booked for 2020. A fantastic trip to get back travelling again. Great balance of scenery, history, culture and fun. The itinerary is well planned snd we benefited from an experienced tour leader who really did ‘make’ this trip so fantastic. He worked around us, the places, and worked hill time making sure we all got what we wanted. No early starts for one😀 The special feature of these locations is their history of being ‘in the middle’ for centuries. Most recently the transition from Soviet rule to European independence. The signs of both are very evident. The icing on the cake got this trip was the tour leader Andrius being born and raised under the Soviets and now benefiting from the new freedoms. His experiences were very good to hear snd learn from

Scenic walks (apart from the introductory one on Sunday which was a bit of a walk to nowhere) with great views from the top of the hills. It was a bit hot but all the walkers coped with the permanent sunshine. Gizer, the leader, is a very good organiser, with perfect timing and good knowledge of the history of the places we visited – Girne, Bellapais Abbey, Saint Hilarion, Kantara and Buffavento Castle (the walk up to it recompense the walker with breath-taking views). He also organised the optional but very informative excursions to Famagusta and Nicosia which offered us the chance to find out a lot of facts about places we knew only from the news. I would also like to commend Omar, the driver, very efficient as well, helpful and funny; he helped me learn more Turkish language than I knew before 😉. The food was good, and the best dinners we had were at Niazi’s and Eminem (no connection with the rapper 😉). The best lunch was at the Caravan Serai in Nicosia – thank you Gizer! Pia Bella Hotel was clean with good sized rooms, very professional, polite, and friendly service, good range of food items at the breakfast. Al in all, a very rewarding holiday – Thanks to Exodus, Gizer, and everybody else who made it happen.

A varied trip with great cycling opportunities, mostly off main roads, led by an experienced leader. Emanuele was our leader, a local man with knowledge and passion for local history and geography. There were opportunities each day to eat and drink local specialities, and a couple of special treats such as cheese-making and olive oil tasting. There are no bus transfers, you cycle a good way each day, sometimes a few challenging hills and dips, sometimes a chance to cycle as fast as you want off road, but on good surfaces. Emanuele is an excellent leader who keeps control of the group at the same time as giving everyone the chance to go at their own pace. You don't need to be a strong cyclist to do the trip, there are always regroupings so that nobody gets left behind, and nobody feels left out. There are a couple of coffee and lunch stops where we were able to swim in the gorgeous blues of the Ionian Sea if we wanted, or just laze on a bench with a marvellous gelato. A couple of the hotels en route had swimming pools.

For the well season wanderer, a trip to Baltics is a time traveller's delight. From visiting medieval town (Tallin), 18th century chateau (Rundale), wonderful art nouveau buildings (Riga), dour grey soviet era (nuclear missile site) to an optimistic future (Vilnius). Our wonderful historian on this trip, Andrius, knew pre and post soviet rule and was very clear which path for the Baltic states he would choose

We travelled to Albania at the end of April 2022 and had a brilliant experience. Three days in the mountains followed by three days by the coast. Scenery was stunning so we ran out of superlatives to describe it. We were met by our local tour leader - Erlis- at the airport who competently organised everything. Food on the trip was very good. Mediterranean in style, lots of vegetables, fresh fish and many plates of chips. We were very well fed. Cycling was challenging particularly on the first and last days with some long ascents however the bikes supplied were pretty good and gearing coped well. All the effort was definitely worth it. We have travelled to a few remote places around the world but Albania was completely different and well worth going to. Erlis gave us a good briefing on some of the recent history of the country opening our eyes to this part of the world. Definitely a place to visit.

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