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| On the Rhine. |
We have been wanting to do another European trip for some time. The "European Sojourn" offered by Viking seemed like what we wanted. It would include a bit of what we had encountered on our "Rhine Getaway", (see: Exploring the Rhine ) which we did way back in 2018!!
It's been too long since we had a nice long trip. We decided to book the trip and add a few free days to both ends of the itinerary. This would allow us to check out Amsterdam before the cruise, and possibly go visit Istanbul after the end of the cruise.
For Amsterdam, we simply booked a centrally located hotel through Booking.com. But for Istanbul, we ultimately decided just to book Viking's excursion, a three day visit which included guided tours of Istanbul's primary attractions. It was a little more expensive but in the end proved to be the best option.
This first part of my chronical will cover the initial part of our cruise which went through the same area we had visited in 2018, only in reverse order!
After the 10+ hour flight, we deplaned in Amsterdam. There was a slight delay in getting to our cab but we eventually hooked up and were on our way. The Sunday traffic was quite heavy. Along the way we noticed a lot of very modern-looking buildings.
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| An example of weird architecture in Amsterdam. |
Eventually we came to our lodging, a Motel One located near the old city and near the port as well. It's a very nice Hotel, (not really what I would call a motel, but that's just semantics). After check in we went for a short walk and found a nice cafe for a light dinner.
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| Bad shot of our room. |
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| The view from our window. |
The Motel has a very good breakfast bar so we enjoyed our breakfasts there. We walked to the port and tried to figure out where the Viking boat would be. this day we got an email from Viking stating that our cruise's itinerary would likely be affected by high water levels! This is most ironic since we planned this trip for late spring on order to be sure that the river levels would not be too low!!
We weren't far from Amsterdam's famous "Red Light" District, although it seems more of a tourist spot now than anything else...
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| Still some interesting sites to be seen. |
The next day we took a tour of the Heineken Brewery, which also included a canal cruise. The Brewery is no longer operational but is a museum. Reminded me of Stiegl's in Salzburg. The cruise was fun and pretty interesting. Amsterdam has a lot of canals!
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| People live on these boats, which don't seem to have been sailed for a long time. The mooring slots are expensive and hard to get. |
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| A drawbridge across one canal. |
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| We passed this while on our canal tour. There are seven bridges in this view! |
Of course, this town has a lot of bikes too. And the famous Dutch infrastructure including bike lanes and bike stands. For all that I have to admit that I would be a little intimidated to ride on that town. Riders are of all ages and sexes and are aggressive. Not sure I could keep up!
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| A pretty typical sight in town. Bikes everywhere. |
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| A subtle example of bike infrastructure. That tray on the right of the steps is to allow a cyclist to roll his bike down the steps! |
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| I saw several examples of this type. I thought it was a pretty nice city bike with the integrated lights in the frame and the dynamo hub. |
Anyway, after the cruise we walked to the hotel, stopping for fish and chips at an Australian themed cafe.
The next morning I went back to the port alone to check on boarding. I found our boat had arrived and got the details for embarkation. Went back to check out and collect the luggage and Shelly! We were able to walk to the port, even with our luggage as it wasn't all that far.
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| On the walk to the port. |
After that we went to visit the Van Gough Museum. Great! Lots of stuff to see there.
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Had lunch at a cafe on our walk back to the boat where we were able to check in! Dinner on the boat was nice as usual!
Soon we were underway. After breakfast the next morning, we were in Kinderdijk. Even though we had done the tour back in 2018, we decided to go on it again, and I'm glad we did.
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| Kinderdijk! |
The next day found us in Cologne. Viking had to moor in their winter harbor. We had decided to skip the tour of Cologne since we had already see it and Shelly's foot was a little sensitive today. We did walk into town to purchase a few toiletries but that was it.
The next day we arrived in Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle rivers. We had a nice stroll through town but had to get back on board for the afternoon scenic cruise of the Rhine. The Rhine was indeed at a very high level.
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| At Koblenz, that's the Main River behind Shelly. |
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| On the scenic Rhine! |
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| A view of the high water level overflowing to the path. |
This brought us to the end of this cruise's stretch on the Rhine, we were now to turn off the Rhine and enter the Main River to go eastward! From now on we were see new sites!
Here are some links to more photos: Amsterdam to Koblenz
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