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Our Rhine River Group Cruise Begins
- Patti Mills-Roy
- Jun 3
- 7 min read
I just had to include this fabulous photo of our group of 67 who joined our Rhine River Cruise in Basel, Switzerland. Most continued on from our pre-cruise tour in Lake Como & Lake Lucerne. Others joined us just for the cruise with many who also carried on enjoying a couple of extra nights in Amsterdam as well following disembarkation. We had a few missing from the photo but most were able to join us in the shot.
As I’ve already said, the best part of the trip for me was seeing how many great relationships were either started fresh or renewed with all of the participants. There were many from various walks of my life including from our old business in Canada, friends we’ve met along the way or people from our Florida Golf & Country Club neighborhood. The rest of our folks were associated with one of these connections and everyone, surprisingly, got along tremendously! This made my heart soar the most…
Prior to boarding the river cruise ship, we did spend time in Basel, which happens to be Switzerland’s third most populous city following Zurich and Geneva. Our first evening on board included our Welcome Cocktail gathering followed by our Welcome Dinner. We remained overnight in Basel enabling a great selection of tours the following day that included a Basel City Tour, a full day Lucerne Excursion or a “Three Countries Bike Tour”. We chose the former, since we’d already spent 2 fabulous nights in Lucerne prior to arriving in Basel. Others enjoyed the 2 options mentioned and we were so lucky to have the best weather.
We departed for Strasbourg, France that evening prior to our “Sip & Sail” Cocktail hour and then enjoyed another lovely dinner onboard the ship while we sailed from Switzerland to France. Following dinner, a few of us also enjoyed some music in the lounge and even did a little dancing too.
We arrived in the lovely historic Alsace city of Strasbourg shortly after lunch and some smooth cruising on the Rhine. I’ve had Strasbourg on my list to visit for a long while since I’d heard such great things about this very quaint place with the Cathedral that houses the incredible astronomical clock and the beautiful district of Petite France.
The tour we took here was called “Gem of the Alsace” and it truly is a gem. There was also a Strasbourg Bike Tour offered as well. I just loved wandering through this city and took a slew of photos since it is so amazingly photogenic, especially the Petite France area. Once again, we had fantastic weather and enjoyed being able to appreciate some sidewalk café options here again.
Later that day, there was a Trivia Contest that many enjoyed and one of our groups, the Canadians, ended up winning the competition! Yay!
After having this great time touring and some playing trivia, we enjoyed another evening on board the ship with cocktail hour, and AmaWaterway’s very special “Chaine de Rotisseurs” dinner that they’re able to present with their esteemed connection to this great International Association of Gastronomy.
Our next stop the following day brought us into Germany and able to experience the wonderful city of Heidelberg that features the famous Heidelberg Castle along with its glorious Old Town.
At the Heidelberg Castle, the guide shared many charming tales about the previous owners including showing us the largest wine barrel in the world that could store 58,000 gallons of wine, built in the 18th century. It stands almost 25 feet tall and was made from more than 130 oak trees.
Once again, the weather was perfect for us all enjoying either the “Romantic Heidelberg Tour”, a more rigorous hike or bike tour and even a 4th option for anyone who may have already experienced these previously, i.e. a visit to Speyer, one of Germany’s oldest cities. This gives me reason to consider doing the Rhine River again since there are multiple options for touring in each of the ports we visited along the way.
While sailing from Heidelberg to our next stop, many of us listened to the guest lecturer, Dr. Ingo Eser, on “The Rhine – A European History from the Romans to the EU”. It was a very interesting presentation both historically and geographically about the importance of the Rhine River over the years.
We arrived that evening into Rudesheim after having our usual “Sip and Sail” cocktail hour and dinner, just in time to either enjoy yummy Rudesheimer Coffee or visit the famous “Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum”. We had these 2 options for yet again another included excursion upon arrival.
We chose the museum visit and were astounded at the collection displayed there. They have an amazing collection of approximately 400 instruments there dating from the 18th to the 20th century. The museum itself dates back to the 15th century when it was the home of a medieval knight.
Rudesheim is a delightful place to visit, and we were fortunate to overnight there so that we could enjoy both the evening and the following day there when we were able to experience another 4 included options for touring including the one we did, i.e. “Wine Tasting & Gondola Ride”. There was also a bike tour, hiking option, and even an active walking group that walked up the hill for the Gondola ride while we drank wine and rode up the hill… lol.
The scene from the top of the hill was stunning with the start of the Rhine River Gorge below and the monument there was also very interesting to learn about. The Niederwald Monument, standing at almost 125 feet, was built between 1871 and 1883, and commemorates the unification of Germany after the Franco-Prussian war.
I just had to include a little nature photo here of the lovely duck families that we saw a lot of along the Rhine River. Such cuteness…
After we left Rudesheim, we sailed along the gorgeous Rhine Gorge, with a great commentary done by our fantastic Cruise Manager, Ioana. We sailed past so many impressive castles steeped in history and various legends. Part of the cruise by also included Loreley Rock, a story that has inspired many poems and songs to be written over the years. The rock is said to produce an echo that is “associated with the legend of a beautiful mermaid who threw herself into the Rhine in despair over a faithless lover and was transformed into a siren who lured fishermen to destruction.”
Another interesting photo I thought I’d share is of the Loreley railroad tunnel that was built to look like a castle in the 19th century. Many more tunnels were decorated to look like castles during World War II in hopes that they would avoid being bombed.
Two of the many castles we sailed past included both Katz Castle and Marksburg Castle, dating back to the early 12th century, in 1117, when the initial defense structure was expanded. The former is said to be the guardian of the Loreley Valley and is one of the most enchanting castles, nicknamed “Cat Castle”.
Funnily enough, there was a “Mouse Castle”, spelled Maus, in German. It does come by its name honestly due to the legend about the owner returning only to encounter an army of mice that had taken over the property in his absence. He was actually a very nasty ruler named Hatto II, who ultimately deserved to be tormented by these rodents since he himself tormented and ultimately killed many of the peasants in his territory during a terrible famine in the year 970.
We were fortunate enough to actually visit Lahneck Castle later that afternoon and learned a little about its past and present owners. It was built in the 13th century and one of the tragic stories told to us was of a Scottish girl who ended up dying of thirst when a wooden staircase collapsed leaving her stranded in the tower with the recordings of her demise via a diary that she had left. A very sad story. The priceless furniture, paintings and artifacts make for a very interesting visit.
That evening on the cruise ship, we had the privilege of being entertained by a talented trio of classical musicians called La Strada. Everyone listening was very impressed with their performance.
Our final stop before Amsterdam, was Cologne, Germany made famous with its UNESCO World Heritage Gothic Cathedral standing an impressive 515 feet tall. The site where this cathedral resides has had Christian churches since the 4th century. The current structure was started in 1248 but only completed by about 1880 due to funding issues. Although Cologne was very heavily bombed during World War II, the cathedral survived in spite of suffering 14 hits from aerial bombs.
Cologne was completely rebuilt after World War II so that most of the structures are much newer. The city’s population is younger with an average age of about 42 years or so since it’s also a university city with one of the largest universities in Germany.
We had an interesting walking tour of Cologne given by a young Spanish guy named Angel. He had an intriguing perspective about the German people and the city itself and relayed many stories to us particularly related to various structures and monuments. He had a very dry sense of humor that was quite amusing. There were also other tour options including one with more of a focus on the cathedral itself and yet another bike tour.
That night on the ship we had our farewell cocktail event and dinner so that the final night of the cruise would be free for people to do their packing and bid their goodbyes to their new friends and ship companions. We had a really fun night of dancing as we packed the dance floor that night, mostly with our vivacious, fabulous group of people!
I thought I'd be able to get through the entire cruise with this blog but our arrival into Amsterdam and on board for our final night will just have to wait for the next one. I've gone on too long as it is with this. Stay tuned for the exciting city of Amsterdam and our final country, The Netherlands!!
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