7-Days Eleven Cities package 1A

From day to day

The Eleven Cities Tour from day to day
After booking, you will receive your customized travel information for each day. In any case, you will be expected to arrive at your starter hotel (also the finishing point) in the late afternoon on the first day, where, should you arrive by car, you can park for the duration of your cycling holiday.

After checking in (between 15.00 and 19.00 p.m.) and moving into the hotel room(s), you will enjoy your first dinner in the hotel restaurant. The next day, well-rested and well-informed, you’ll be starting your first cycling day in accordance with your personal travel programme. You can select the sights and landscape attractions you want to visit while you’re still at home. You will find these in the comprehensive travel guide and on the Eleven Cities Route map you receive after booking.

On the final day, you cycle back to the hotel where you started the trip, the starter hotel, where your car is parked. After your baggage has been delivered by the Friesland Holland driver (between 09.00 a.m. and 18.00 p.m.), you are free to depart for home. This is the end of the package tour but, should you prefer to extend your stay, it is possible to book an extra overnight stay in advance.

Hotels

The hotels and restaurants
Friesland Holland hotels are all very nice hotels, highly diverse, each and every one of them with its own identity and featuring a restaurant with good cuisine. Wherever you stay, you can count on being served with a fine menu. It is exactly this unique diversity that makes your holiday in Friesland even more of an experience. Every day, you will be pleasantly surprised.

The level is, speaking in international hotel terminology, three to four stars, but travel agency Friesland Holland makes use of pompeblêden, the red waterlily leaves on the Frisian flag. In Friesland the location and character of the accommodation and the degree of hospitality carry more weight. The hotels selected especially by Friesland Holland are often on the small side, but lovely and in general uniquely located family businesses in the historic Eleven Cities or in pleasant country villages on or near the Eleven Cities route. The hotels all have a minimum of four pompeblêden. 

Hotel check-in and check-out, dinner:
Check-in is preferably between 15.00 and 19.00 p.m. Dinner is served between 18.00 and 20.00 p.m. (times may vary due to, for example, covid measures). Check-out is before 10.00 a.m. If you are travelling in a group, it may be wise to notify the hotel reception desk of your estimated time of arrival half an hour in advance.

Services

Bagage transport:
Our bagage transfer service, roughly operating between the end of March to the beginning of October, is included in the travel fees of your cycling holiday. Between 09.00 a.m. and 18.00 p.m. Friesland Holland transfers your luggage, labelled with a luggage tag provided by Friesland Holland, from hotel to hotel. This makes it possible for you to visit cafés, restaurants and tourist attractions without having to worry about the valuable luggage on your bicycle.

Please note: the luggage that you want to take with you must be waiting at reception at 09.00 o’clock sharp in order to be transferred to the next hotel. The delivery time may run late due to special circumstances, but this hardly ever occurs.

The driver handles only luggage labelled with a Friesland Holland luggage tag. Should you take your own luggage along with you, for example because you want to make an early departure and don’t want to wait for your luggage, or are forced to cut short your holiday because of unforseen circumstances, please notify Friesland Holland. This prevents unnecessary delay caused by the driver fruitlessly searching for your luggage and also worry at the travel office about the travel guests.

Also important: your suitcase(s) or bags — one per person and, please, no heavier than 15 kg (take the handler’s back into consideration!) — must be of robust quality. So no plastic carrier bags and suchlike. Friesland Holland cannot be held responsible for possible damage to your luggage, such as a loose wheel or handle, which sometimes happens when the luggage is of inferior quality. Moreover, Friesland Holland is responsible for luggage only between the moment of collection at the hotel and the time of delivery at the reception of the next hotel. 

Breakdown assistance with mobility guarantee:
Breakdown assistance with moblility guarantee is included in the price of all Friesland Holland cycling packages. This unique service ensures alternative transport (deluxe bike) in the entire province of Friesland, except for the islands, should you have a breakdown or accident along the way with your own bike or a rental bike and should it not be possible for a bicycle repairman in the vicinity to fix your bike within the hour. You will then be provided with an e-bike with multiple gears and bike bags, free of charge, for the duration of your holiday and/or the Friesland Holland Assistance vehicle will bring you to the day’s final destination (also free of charge).

In most cases the driver of the Friesland Holland Assistance vehicle will return your defective bike to the starter hotel, but, on special request and in consultation with your advisor, can also deliver your defective bike to a bicycle repairshop nearby to where you are staying. It goes without saying that the repair costs of your own bike are at your own expense. In any case ,Friesland Holland Assistance will always make it possible for you to continue your journey. The service is available from the end of March to the beginning of October, 7 days a week.

Tip: the deluxe rental bikes from Rent-a-Topbike are equipped with high-quality puncture-proof tires. If you plan to ride the Eleven Cities route on your own bike, it is advisible to have puncture-proof tires installed, for example Marathon E-Plus with several protection layers (level 7). The  Friesland Holland bicycles have also been equipped with this type of tire, minimalizing the risk of puncture.

Extending your stay
If, at the end of the last day of your holiday, you do not want depart for home just yet, it is possible to book an extra overnight stay with Friesland Holland at the starter or finish hotel, or in another Eleven Cities route hotel. We urge you to make your reservation for an extra night upon booking, because of the high occupancy rate of our hotels.

Travel documentation

Those who book this extraordinary holiday will receive upon booking a 260-page, A4-format travel guide about Friesland and the Eleven Cities, full of stories (in four languages: Dutch, German, English and French), lots of pictures and maps, and all of the sights to be seen along the route. This way, you can start to enjoy the splendour Friesland has to offer while you are still at home and select the attractions you want to visit.

The information set sent to your home address after booking comprises:

• Guest information. This is an important document that you definitely need to take with you on your journey to Friesland. It is a customized travel programme with your lodging addresses, the routes to be completed and the cycling distances per day. The guest information also serves as a voucher for the hotels we have notifed about your arrival.
• Friesland Travel Guide & Tourist Atlas (260-page travel book in four languages)
• Route maps showing the cycle junction network
• Situation maps of the Eleven Cities route with directions to the hotels and back to the route
• Eleven Cities stamp card (one per person). Upon completing the Friesland Holland Eleven Cities Route you will receive a personalized certificate (Fee:10 euros)
• Frisian holiday passport
• Luggage transportation labels (must be attached to each piece of luggage!)
• Booking terms

Eleven Cities Tour

About the history of the classic Eleven Cities Tour and today’s routes
Once in a lifetime everyone should untertake the 250 km long Eleven Cities route by car, bicycle or boat. Otherwise you’ll miss experiencing an important part of the rich history of the Netherlands. Nowhere will you find a route with as much variation as the Eleven Cities Route, a part of internationally renowned Frisian heritage, especially since the last Eleven Cities Tour on ice in January 1997.

Package tours
Friesland Holland Travel Service, travel agency of the tourist information office for Fryslân, offers a scala of 3- to 8-day Eleven Cities package tours with SGR guarantee. All include baggage transport and speedy breakdown service: immediate replacement with a deluxe bike!

Exclusive bikes
You can undertake the Eleven Cities Tour on your own bicycle, a deluxe touring bike or an e-bike from Rent a Topbike, Friesland Holland’s bicycle rental division. The travel agency features its own e-bikes and touring bikes, all of top-notch brands, Eleven Cities-proof, and provided with two handsome and useful bike bags. So no typical rental bikes, but deluxe multiple-speed bicycles with manually easy to adjust handlebars and saddle, such as the e-bikes from the Alba Unique series. These are exclusive e-bikes, developed in consultation with Friesland Holland, and entirely based on Shimano technology. The drive technology is also by this Japanese top-brand.

Every leg of the journey, every day a sensation
Every leg of the journey, whether by bike, car, motorcycle, sloop, sailboat or cabin motor yacht is a unique experience. For example, you climb 10 meter high, 5000 year old residential mounds along UNESCO world heritage site the Waddenzee and cycle through the woods and over the cliffs of Gaasterland along the IJsselmeer. The ultimate delight is to take a seat on one of the many terraces in the historic, romantic cities or on the lakeside along one of the many Frisian lakes. And remember to reserve a day for Leeuwarden, in 2018 the European Capital of Culture, and for good reason!

Theatre on the water
In Friesland, every hour of the day, there is what you might call theatre on the water: modern yachts, sloops and huge traditional sailing ships passing sluices and bridges and mooring at the city’s ancient ramparts. Friesland is Europe’s largest and most versatile waterpark, with facilities for every type of boat, the million-dollar yachts of the richest of the rich included.

400 years of Eleven Cities Tours
It is not exactly known when the Eleven Cities Tour was first undertaken by skate. But it is probable that the tradition of skating past all eleven Frisian cities in one day dates back to  the 16th century. The official 200 km long Eleven Cities Tour on ice-skates has been around for over a hundred years now. The first skating race to be organized took place on January 2, 1909; the last on January 4, 1997. In that year nearly 17,000 skaters completed the 200 km tour within the stipulated time: arrival before 12 o’clock midnight. If the weather conditions are favourable, professional speed skaters can complete the race in less than seven hours; recreational skaters are allotted 18 hours to do so. The possibility of organizing an Eleven Cities Tour for skaters ever again depends on climate change.

Eleven Cities Tours
Thanks to tourist agency Friesland Holland there is no need to wait for three weeks of heavy frost to enjoy the atmosphere of the olden days of: Friesland Holland organizes Eleven Cities Tours every day of the year. The starting point and finish are always in Leeuwarden, but for practical reasons (parking) our tourist tours usually start and finish in the southern part of Friesland.

Eleven Cities cross
In order to compete in the Eleven Cities Tour, all skaters must be members of the Royal Association of the Eleven Cities and have a starting pass. Every participant to finish the race  within the set time and to have collected the requisite stamps in each city is awarded a medal: the Eleven Cities Cross. Only professional speed skaters with a maximal time overrun of 20% of the finishing time of the winner are eligible for an Eleven Cities cross. Recreational skaters must arrive at the finish in Leeuwarden before 12 o’clock midnight in order to return home with the much-coveted medal.

The medal was designed in 1909. It takes the form of a Maltese cross, with in the middle a circle. This circle bears the arms of Fryslân set in enamel. The inscription reads: ‘De Friesche Elf Steden’. In 2009 the Association received the predicate ‘royal’ and so the medal was redesigned in order to encompass a royal crown. These royal crosses will be awarded after the next race. The image of the Eleven Cities cross, the logo, the flag and the name, Koninklijke Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden (Royal Association of the Frisian Eleven Cities), are protected and may not be used or exploited by third parties without permission.

Since the year 1909 a total of 56,314 silver Eleven Cities crosses have been awarded. This medal can only be earned by completing the entire race within the time limit. Participants who have completed the tour by bicycle, car, motorcycle, microcar, on foot, by boat or by any other means in the context of an Eleven Cities package issued by the center for tourism in Fryslân, Friesland Holland, will receive on presentation of a full stamp card and upon payment of €10,- a certificate in their own name.