Day 11 - Basel

Still a cloudy day but thankfully a little less rainy than yesterday. We walked down to the river walk where the picture below was taken. You could walk along the river for miles here. Basel is a mix of newer buildings and the “Old Town” which is what you see here.

Below is the beautiful Rathaus building, which houses Basel’s City Hall. Across from it is a market area that is open almost every day.

We went looking for some shopping areas and found the Spalentor (Gate of Spalen) which is one of the three city gates still remaining from the 1400s (picture above). There is a lot of shopping in Basel, but very few souvenir shops. We went to the train station and were amazed at how many nice stores were located there, along with so many food options also. However, prices in Switzerland are much higher than in the Netherlands or Germany.

The above two photos show how there are very few cars driving around in Basel. Our Viking tour guide said everyone either takes the trams, buses or bikes, as parking is very expensive and hard to find. You really only see delivery trucks on most roads, and people cross the roads wherever they want to! The tram system is amazing and easy to use. We got free tram passes with our hotel stay so have taken the tram quite a few places since several lines stop right in front of our hotel.

The boat on the right in the picture above is one of several small passenger boats that are tethered to a line and cross the Rhine River back and forth with the current - no motor.

Tomorrow we have to say goodbye to Europe, how sad! We fly from Basel to Frankfort, Germany, and then home to Chicago. We hope everything goes smoothly!

Day 10 - Basel

Nothing to post today. A transfer from our boat to the hotel in Basel and it rained all day. We rode a couple trams around town, but that’s about it. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

Day 9 - Breisach

This morning our ship is docked in Breisach, Germany. We did an optional tour this a.m. of the medieval village of Colmar, France. It was a 40 minute bus ride to Colmar, with narration about the area given by our tour guide. That was followed by an hour walking tour and then we had time to explore the area by ourselves and shop a little. Below is a picture of the smallest house in Colmar, which our guide said is the size of about two of our staterooms on the ship.

Above is a 14th century farmhouse tucked away in the streets of Colmar. Below is one of the statues by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi who was born here in 1834. He was the artist who sculpted the Statue of Liberty and on the bus drive this morning we saw a smaller replica of the Liberty statue in the middle of a round-about! We saw two other statues by Bartholdi around town and the statue below is outside a museum featuring more of his works. The three people holding up the world represent justice, work, and patriotism.

We headed back to the ship for lunch and decided we didn’t want to do the afternoon included tour of the Black Forest. It would have been a lot of time on a bus and we are about toured out. Since the boat was right in Breisach, it was an easy walk to tour that city which was really cute. There was a lot of shopping and restaurants but not nearly the crowds we found in other port cities. Pictured below is the Hagenbach Tower, which used to be a prison. The tower is found along the steep walk up to St. Stephan’s church which overlooks Breisach and the river.

Above you can see how sometimes ships must be docked right next to each other. It didn’t happen a lot on this trip, but when it does you may have very close neighbors and to exit you cross through another ship. Our ship the Sigyn left Breisach at around 6:30 p.m. headed overnight to Basel, Switzerland. We have to have our luggage in the hallway by 7:30 a.m., ready for Viking to transport them to our hotel in Basel so it’s going to be an early morning.

Day 8 - Strasbourg, France

This morning came way too quickly! We weren’t sure we were going to make it to our included highlights tour this morning, but we persevered. Our ship was in Kehl, Germany, across the river from Strasbourg, France. The first part of our tour that started at 8:45 a.m. was by bus and then we had a walking tour around Strasbourg, including the Petite France section which was very pretty with its half-timbered houses and quiet canals.

We walked across the guard bridge (picture above) into the Petite France area (pictured below).

Strasbourg Cathedral (below) is officially called the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg. The spire of the church alone is 466 feet tall, so this is the world’s sixth-tallest church. Until 1874, it was the tallest building in the world. We didn’t get to go inside since it was a Sunday and masses were going on so you couldn’t get in until this afternoon when we had another tour. The church was just too big to get in one shot! They had a miniature model beside the church that looked ideal for showing the entire church.

After another great lunch on board, we joined our afternoon tour for Alsatian Wine Tasting. A bus took us to the Achillee winery, where we tasted five different kinds of wine (and liked four of them). We also had a tour of the operations of the winery and went out along the vineyards. It was very nice although everyone is so tired from almost a week of cruising and tours that our guide offered to stay quiet for part of the ride there and back (rather than giving us information about the Alsace area) so we could all take cat naps.

As soon as we got back from that tour, Kathy attended the Port Talk which included our disembarkation details (how sad!) while Jack edited these photos. Then we all met for dinner in the restaurant, which was a “Taste of Germany” buffet featuring lots of German food and desserts. We decided to head back to our room immediately after dinner to finish this blog so we can get to bed early. We are glad we did because currently our boat is in a lock, ready to be raised up to the level on the other side of the dam. We have all been out on our balconies to watch the progress and could easily touch the wall of the lock. Tomorrow is Briesach with a morning tour of Colmar and an afternoon excursion to the Black Forest.

Day 7 - Speyer, Germany

This morning after breakfast (omelets made to order!), Kathy attended a brief talk about our post-extension trip in Basel, Switzerland. Then the ship made a quick stop in Mannheim, Germany, to drop off a few people for an excursion to Heidelberg. The ship continued on as we attended a talk about other cruises with Viking. We were worried it might be a hard sell to sign up for another cruise, but it was just an informative and funny talk by our excellent program director.

After lunch we got off the ship at our next stop in Speyer, Germany, for a walking tour. Our tour guide this time was a little more like a strict professor than a funny tour guide, but we still learned a lot. Above are pictures of the Imperial Cathedral of Speyer, which is one of the world’s largest Romanesque cathedrals and was built between 1030 and 1061.

Above is the Altportel (Old Gate) which is the medieval west city gate of Speyer. It is surrounded by a busy shopping and restaurant area. After our official tour was over we walked past the gate and visited two other churches. The first was another Catholic Church, St. Joseph (not pictured). Then a little farther down the street was the Protestant Memorial Church which features a statue of Martin Luther in the front. The city of Speyer was where Martin Luther’s religious revolution received its name of Protestantism.

Around 5:30 p.m. we walked back to the ship as it was going to be departing Speyer after 6 p.m. There was a Port Talk about our day tomorrow, a delicious dinner featuring Chateaubriand (beef tenderloin), and then a Music Quiz in the lounge which our team of six did not win!

Today was a relaxing day which is good because tomorrow is very full of activities. We are sadly nearing the end of our cruise, so we want to make the most of our last full two days on the ship.

Day 6 - Koblenz & the Rhine River Gorge

This morning we had an early breakfast as the boat docked in Braubach, Germany. We then took a bus to the start of a walking tour in Historic Koblenz. One of the many sites we saw was the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), which is located where the Moselle River joins the Rhine River. It features a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I, shown below. The original statue was destroyed during WWII and in 1993 a copy of the statue, donated by a local couple, was reinstalled.

In the building in the photo above, the windows are used as an advent calendar at Christmas time, featuring lit up numbers. There were so many sites and statues to see in Koblenz and it was a very interesting walking tour even though it rained the entire three hours we were in the city. We were pretty damp by the time we got back on the bus. The last thing our tour guide took us to was a women’s clothing shop in the old town built around a continuous 2,000 year old city wall from the time when the Roman’s ruled the area (below). Interesting combination of very old and very new!

After we got back to the ship at lunchtime, it cast off to head to Rudesheim just as the skies began to clear, a little. Below is one of the many towns we passed along the river today. We got to use our room’s balcony quite a bit today especially after the rains and winds slowed down.

After lunch we went up to the top “Sun Deck”. The sun wasn’t shining but at least it was no longer raining. For the next two hours we listened as our ship’s program director told us over the loudspeaker about all the towns and castles we were slowly passing. The crew handed out blankets and hot chocolate to keep us warm (some hot chocolate spiked with rum). It was a very comfortable and informative afternoon.

We saw a total of 20 castles as our ship sailed 40 miles this afternoon through the Rhine River Gorge, so Jack got a lot of great pictures. It’s just too bad the skies weren’t blue and sunny. After the castle tour, several in our group attended a demonstration on board about the steps to make Rudesheim Coffee (coffee, brandy, sugar, whipped cream and dark chocolate!). That was followed by a Port Talk about tomorrow and we learned we would set sail again tonight at midnight.

At around 5:30 p.m. our boat arrived in Rudesheim. We weren’t doing any of the add-on excursions, so we walked into the city (very close by) and explored. We did a little shopping and had dinner (schnitzel and mushrooms) before heading back to the boat for some cocktails before bed. We get to sleep in tomorrow and are very excited about that!

Day 5 - Cologne, Germany

Today the ship first docked in Zons, Germany, to let many of us off for the morning’s walking tour. We boarded buses which took us into the city of Cologne to start the tours. We had time to go inside the Cologne Cathedral, learn about how much people from Cologne don’t like people from Düsseldorf(!), see Old Town, and learn about the cologne (perfume) industry, as well as about the church taxes Germans pay. After the official tour, we stayed in Cologne a few hours and walked over the river to the Cologne Triangle building, which has an observation deck up top from where the first photo below was taken.

The Cologne Cathedral took over 600 years to complete and was the tallest building in the world in 1880. It supposedly houses relics from the Magi in the Shrine of the Three Kings which is located behind the altar. While 90% of Cologne was bombed and leveled in WWII, the cathedral was left standing, mainly as a landmark for Allied pilots. It’s huge, and would be quite a landmark! Later on when we went to the Cologne Triangle building we walked across the Hohenzollembrucke bridge, where millions of couples have attached locks and thrown their keys into the river. There were locks everywhere high and low! Afterwards we wandered around a bit more before heading to the shuttle, which took us to our ship, now docked in an industrial area in Cologne due to water level issues (not enough) on the Rhine.

There was a bit of time to relax before we attended the Port Talk about tomorrow’s schedule. Then we and our friends left directly for our Cologne Beer Culture & Dinner excursion. We took a bus back into the city where our tour guide took us to three different bierhauser. At the first we had a three course German meal and lots of Kolsch beer, which is the official beer of Cologne, and at the second two bars we had more Kolsch beer. Then the bus took us back to our boat which had left Cologne as soon as we departed and was now making a brief stop in Wesseling to pick us up!

Tomorrow is “Castle Day”. We will be cruising down the Rhine where many castles are located. The chance of rain right now is very high, and we are hoping that forecast will change so we can be on the top deck to admire the views.

Day 4 - Kinderdijk, Netherlands

Our first full day on the ship featured some morning tours and then an afternoon of cruising. We left Amsterdam last night at 11:30 a.m. (and never woke up when we left, the ship is very quiet and smooth). This morning, the ship docked for a short while in Rotterdam to let those of us off who were doing the morning excursions. We (along with two of our friends) did the Dutch Cheese Making & Kinderdijk Windmills tour. The bus from Rotterdam drove us a half hour to a small family-owned cheese making company. There we learned how Gouda cheese is made and tasted some “young” Gouda, “old” Gouda, and several other varieties of cheese. It was very interesting and delicious! Below are pictures of the wheels of the cheeses as they are aged. In the Netherlands, they say that smoked Gouda cheese is what you do with bad cheese not good enough to sell as straight gouda. And then she laughed and said they do not make smoked gouda in the Netherlands.

Then we got back on the bus and were driven another 15 minutes to Kinderdijk which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The windmills of Kinderdijk are used to pump water in or out of the reservoirs and rivers depending on the water levels. At one time there were more than 150 windmills in the area dating back to the 1600’s and 1700’s. Since there are now two modern pumping stations, the number of windmills in the area is down to 28, with 19 right in the Kinderdijk area. We got to see an old windmill in action (it goes fast!) and went inside (very cramped!). Then we walked from there right to our ship, which as soon as everyone boarded left quickly for the afternoon sailing to Germany.

We all ate lunch on the boat then had time for naps or just to enjoy the view from our balconies and windows as the boat cruised along the Waal River. Kathy attended a Q&A talk with the captain, and later we all went to cocktail hour. That was followed by “A Toast to Our Guests” with the captain and Sigyn management officials and then there was a Port Talk about tomorrow’s plans. Dinner was again excellent, followed by another self-imposed cocktail hour. And we still didn’t do everything offered on the ship! The travel to Cologne will take 24 hours with some slow speeds at time due to the water level in the Rhine being low.

Thursday is another interesting day as we have two excursions to attend while the boat continues to cruise, so we will be in three different German cities. Back tomorrow!

Day 3 Still Amsterdam

This morning we had to have our luggage ready by 10 a.m. to be picked up by a Viking representative to be taken to the ship. Since we couldn’t get into our rooms on the boat until the afternoon, we headed over to the Centraal Station area which was bustling with tourists who had just arrived by trains. We got coffees at a pub, then waited for two of our friends so we could go on an hour-long canal ride. It was nice to see the city from the waterways, although we had a difficult time hearing the captain and the automated tour recording because so many other people were talking loudly and one little boy made it apparent he wanted off the boat. After that we grabbed lunch and then walked to our Viking ship, the Sigyn, which was located quite a walk past the train station.

We were checked into our room and found that although it is small, there are a lot of storage areas and shelves so that we could unpack quite a bit - a very well organized room. Our suitcases fit under the bed which made the room seem even bigger. There was a cocktail hour and then the official Welcome Briefing, where we met the Sigyn’s management team and learned about our river cruise plans. Next it was time to participate in a safety drill by donning our life jackets and proceeding to a specified area. Dinner was served at 7:15 p.m. in the ship’s restaurant — there were several different menu options and the food was all very delicious.

The above photo was taken from the top deck of our ship looking out to North Amsterdam while still docked. After dinner when we got back to our room, a new daily schedule for tomorrow and our excursion tickets were waiting for us. The boat leaves Amsterdam at 11:30 p.m. tonight and we are doing a tour tomorrow morning where we have to leave the boat at 8 a.m. Time to say goodnight!

Day 2 - Amsterdam

Another great day in Amsterdam! We started the day with a walking tour and ended with some beautiful night time photos including the one below of an area where two canals meet.

In the morning we went on the walking tour that was included in our pre-excursion with Viking. Our tour guide for the two-hour tour was informative and funny, and we learned a lot. The Viking group staying at the hotel was so big that they divided us up into 3 groups, and thanks to Viking providing each of us with an earpiece and receiver, we could hear the guide well even if we slowed to take pictures. Below is one of the numerous “plaskruls” (a public urinal for men) that are scattered around the city that we had to include in our blog!

Another stop on the tour was the very quiet 14th century courtyard of Begijnhof, which was originally built as a sanctuary for Catholic women who served the community like nuns, but did not take vows. Today, the religious community no longer exists but in order to live here you must still be female (over 50) and have your application accepted. It was a very peaceful place, right off of a busy area.

After our walking tour ended, we explored more of Amsterdam, including the Our Lord in the Attic Museum, a former hidden Catholic church in the middle of the red light district. In the 17th century, a Protestant city government was in power and forbid Catholics to practice their faith in public places. But since the principle of freedom of conscience was (and is) strong in the Netherlands, hidden churches were allowed. This church was built by a wealthy Catholic merchant. The diagram farther below shows the whole house and the area where the church was hidden.

After lunch and a short break, we met two of our friends at the Anne Frank House for a very somber and informative tour. Then we all met our other friends (there are six of us total) for dinner. Jack took the first photo in today’s blog and the following photo on our walk back to the hotel tonight. Tomorrow we check out of our hotel and get on the boat!

Day 1 - Arrived in Amsterdam!

We’re here! Our 6:10 p.m. flight on Saturday was on time and uneventful. We didn’t sleep great — Jack’s Oura ring told him his sleep score was only a 39 out of 100 (Kathy is pretty sure she didn’t sleep much at all, but she did watch a great film — Missing — so that was a plus.) Viking representatives met us after customs and took us to our hotel in Amsterdam (Park Centraal Hotel) where we were able to drop off our luggage and learn a little more about plans for the next few days.

Our main goal for today was to just keep going without zonking out. It was cold and rainy all day. There are lots and lots and lots of bicycles parked and flying down all the streets. Plus there was a marathon going on that made navigating the city even more difficult. We met two of our friends for lunch and then walked to the Dutch Resistance Museum. The exhibits were very well done, explaining how those in the Netherlands responded in different ways to Germany’s occupation during WWII.

We got plenty of steps in and around the city, and are starting to learn that the red paths near the streets mean “Watch out for bikes!” which seem to have the right-of-way over everyone. It was hard to pay attention to our surroundings when we were constantly looking both ways for bikers and trams.

We saw this beautiful rainbow as we were heading back to our hotel to check in since our room was not available earlier. Our feet were getting tired so just the two of us went to a sushi and grill restaurant very near the hotel for a light dinner before it was finally time to call it a day. Lots in store for tomorrow, so we hope we sleep well!