Ten gentle cycling holidays, from the Danube to Japan's island bridges

Cycling holidays have an image problem, and it is lycra-shaped. In reality many of the loveliest bike routes anywhere suit people whose relationship with hills is respectful avoidance: old railway lines, river paths and wine-country lanes where the daily distance is set by lunch rather than a training plan. Every trip here works on a hired bike, electric if you like, and most can be booked self-guided with your luggage moved ahead between hotels. Padded shorts remain, quietly, an excellent idea.

The Passau-to-Vienna stretch of the Danube cycle path is Europe's great easy-going classic: roughly 320 to 330 kilometres downstream, flat or gently falling, almost entirely on dedicated paths away from traffic, past abbeys, vineyards and the apricot villages of the Wachau valley. A week covers it at pastry pace, and self-guided operators shuttle your bags between hotels so you carry nothing but snacks. Ride west to east and the river is on your side. Dürnstein's wine terraces demand a long lunch; comply.

The Loire à Vélo route strings some 900 signposted kilometres from Cuffy, near Nevers, to the Atlantic at Saint-Brevin, past the greatest hits of French château-building. Chambord's roofline alone justifies the detour from Blois, but the smart move is a gentle four-day sampler between Blois and Chinon. The valley floor is mercifully level, and the villages keep you in goat's cheese and chilled Vouvray. June and September dodge the worst of the crowds and heat. The Train Loire à Vélo between Orléans, Tours and Nantes carries bikes, so you can skip a stage; from May to late September book a bike space (about €1 per bike, per train).

Yes, Mallorca is where the professionals train, but the island caters just as well to everyone else: the almond-blossom plains of Es Pla, the flat, fully paved 29-kilometre greenway along the old railway from Manacor to Artà, and quiet coastal spins from Pollença for those happy to leave the Sa Calobra hairpins to the racing crowd. Bike hire is everywhere and well set up for visitors. Come in March, April or October, when it is warm without being fierce, and build every route around a mid-ride café stop, as the locals do.

Spain has turned a long list of disused railway lines into Vías Verdes, greenways with gentle railway gradients. The Vía Verde de la Sierra, between Olvera and Puerto Serrano on the Cádiz–Seville border, is the show-stealer: about 36 kilometres through 30 tunnels and over four viaducts, with griffon vultures wheeling above the great rock at Zaframagón. The longer tunnels have lights that switch on as you ride through, but pack a bike light anyway. Spring paints the verges, and bikes, electric ones included, can be hired at the restored stations at either end.

The Netherlands has more bikes than people and a national network of numbered junctions, the knooppunten, which reduces navigation to jotting a string of numbers on your hand and following the green-and-white signs. Base in Utrecht for canal-side pedalling, then take the train towards the Veluwe, a surprising expanse of forest and heather where around 1,800 white bikes are free to use inside De Hoge Veluwe National Park, with the Kröller-Müller Museum's Van Goghs at its centre. Flat is guaranteed; headwind is the national mountain. Late August turns the heather purple.

Provence by bike is a scratch-and-sniff painting: lavender on the plateau around Sault, just north of the Luberon, in July; vines and ochre cliffs near Roussillon; plane-tree avenues strobing overhead. The waymarked Autour du Luberon circuit runs to about 240 kilometres and is usually ridden over a week, so days stay short, though the climbs up to the hilltop villages are honest. This is the one trip where the e-bike upgrade earns its money. Mont Ventoux will loom on the horizon; you are under no obligation. Markets replace museums here, so shop accordingly.

The Parenzana is a dead narrow-gauge railway resurrected as a 123-kilometre trail from Trieste through Slovenia into Croatian Istria, via viaducts, tunnels and the foot of hill towns like Grožnjan and Motovun that appear to have been art-directed. Gradients stay railway-gentle, but much of the surface is gravel, so ask for a hybrid, gravel or mountain bike with wide tyres; hire shops in Poreč and Motovun know the route. Ride in May or September. Late September also opens Istria's white truffle season, which peaks in October and November, so a truffle lunch near Motovun or Livade is well timed. Three unhurried days is about right.

Three countries, one lake, no hills that matter: the roughly 260-kilometre Bodensee-Radweg circles Lake Constance through Germany, Austria and Switzerland, past orchards, vineyard villages, the flower island of Mainau and Lindau's lion-guarded harbour, with the Alps posing across the water. A week is leisurely, and ferries let you shortcut a stage, which feels like cheating and is in fact the system working. The route is mostly flat, well surfaced and signposted all the way round. Go in September for the harvest, when farm stalls sell apples and fresh juice by the roadside.

Between the Vosges and the Rhine, the Véloroute du Vignoble d'Alsace threads some 130 kilometres of Riesling and Gewürztraminer country from Marlenheim to Thann, linking villages such as Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Kaysersberg that look almost too pretty to be real. Base in Colmar and ride loops of 30 to 50 gentle kilometres, tasting as you go with appropriate restraint; the signs do the navigating. Come at the start of October, when the vines turn gold and villages hold their harvest and new-wine festivals; an e-bike forgives the tastings.

The Shimanami Kaido carries cyclists across the Seto Inland Sea: about 70 kilometres from Onomichi to Imabari, hopping six islands on the bridges of an expressway, with a blue line painted on the road to show the way and citrus groves, shrines and gelato stops between. The climbs up to the bridge decks are long but gradual, rental bikes can be dropped at terminals along the route, and one energetic day or two gentle ones covers it. Spring and autumn are ideal. A lemon ice cream in Setoda, on Ikuchijima, is close to compulsory.