Cruising the Rhine, European Vacation, Part I

Our River Cruise Ship, the Viking Tialfi

This might be called when a "Log" becomes a "Blog".  You see, for some years now I've written private logs, shared only with family members for the most part, about our various travels and vacation adventures.  From some of those emerged my very first Blogs a few years back after we'd retired. Now, after a few months voluntarily "retired" from serious blogging, I decided to get back into the swing of things by basically reprinting my "Log", with pictures added, from a long awaited 3 week trip to Europe we took this past Fall, the centerpiece being a European River Cruise up the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel, Switzerland.  Then, after the cruise, we stayed on for another week plus in North and Central Italy.  We traveled yet again with our good friends from Eugene (and Bend), Connie and Addison Manley, both of them now conveniently retired as well; and we had a great time.  So here's Part I of my "Log/Blog"

Castle on the Rhine, a recurring theme during our river cruise

Wed/Thursday, September 21-22, 2016

Lanie and I flew out of PHX mid-morning on American Airlines for Amsterdam via Philadelphia.  Had about a 2 hour layover in Philadelphia before boarding another American Airlines Jet bound for Amsterdam.  Arrived in Amsterdam Thursday morning local time (9 hour time difference from Tempe).  We didn’t really sleep all that much on the overnight flight, though I did get a bit more “shut-eye” than Lanie.  Anyhow, once in the Amsterdam airport, and after clearing customs, we asked at information desk as to best way to get to our hotel.  They suggested a bus that stopped very near the Hotel; so we got on the bus with all our luggage, managed to get off at the right stop, and, after a little searching around, found the Hotel a short distance down the road, the Hampshire Hotel, Theatre District.  

Delft, the Netherlands

Too early to  check in, so we left the bags at the hotel, took the tram to the Central Rail Station and caught a train to Delft, where we had lunch in this nice, picturesque town before taking another train back to Central, and tram back to the Hotel.  Connie and Addison had arrived by then and had already checked in.  Our rooms were dinky, but serviceable; and we found a nice place to eat nearby and crashed for the night after being mostly awake for the previous 24 hours.

Friday, September 23, 2016 -   We spent most of this day exploring Amsterdam via an On-Off Bus tour, circling the old town and all its wonderful canals; then taking a boat tour as well.  As part of our day long tour, we also went to the VanGogh museum.  Amsterdam is a beautiful city filled with the lovely canals and wonderful buildings in the old Town section.

Amsterdam, a beautiful city built along canals!

It seemed like there were more bicycles, with bicyclists of all ages (Note, no one wore bike helmets) than cars in the city.  While it was nice to see so many people commuting by bike, the bicyclists by and large seemed to feel that they had right of way at all times over us poor pedestrians.  And motor scooters and some small motorcycles also puttered down the bikeways as well, adding to pedestrian “fun”.  But we survived and in general enjoyed the ambience of this wonderful old canal town.  Our hotel was in the Old Town and right across a small canal from a large restaurant and bar area, many of them having both open air and inside seating.

A very public "Pis..", check that, Male Urinal Station, in Amsterdam Theatre District

Saturday, September 24, 2016 -  One of the most moving visits/tours we made on this vacation was to the Anne Frank house just a short distance from our hotel, again using a daily On-Off Bus pass to get there.  It was incredible imagining the Frank family and several other Jewish friends virtually hiding out in this house with darkened windows and few lights much of the time for over two years before they were captured and sent off to Concentration Camps, where only the father survived by the end of the war. 

Friends Forever, Connie and Lanie at a sidewalk cafe in Amsterdam

By mid-day, we had checked out of the hotel and took a tram to the Cruise ship docks near the Central Rail Station.  There we boarded the Viking Tialfi for our weeklong Rhine Getaway Cruise.  The ship took off around 6 PM for the cruise.

Netherlands and Windmills, they go together!

Sunday, September 25, 2016 – Our first stop and tour on this day was at a little town called Kinderdjyk (sp), one of the few places in the Netherlands where there are still a concentration of windmills.  The walking tour took us by several of these historic windmills, and even inside one windmill, where whole families used to live and manage the windmills.  Our tour guide was quite a character, a local resident with a scruffy beard who bore a passing resemblance to the Hag (Merle Haggard).  All in all a good start to our cruise.  We had adjoining 3^rd deck staterooms with small outdoor balconies; but spent most of our daylight time, when we weren’t on tours, either in the lounge up front on the same floor, or up on the open top (4^th) deck.

The "Hag", or reasonable facsimile, holds court during our windmill tour

Monday, September 26, 2016 –  We had left the flatlands of the Netherlands behind by this point, entering the rolling hills along the Rhine in Germany.  Our daily excursion/tour was to Cologne, a wonderful old town.  Actually much of the town was razed by Allied bombing in WWII, but the grand old cathedral, one of the most stunning cathedrals we’d ever seen, survived the war with relatively light damage.  It was definitely a highlight. 
 

Cologne's indomitable cathedral

It was also on this day that we all sampled the famous beer of that region, Kolsch, which was a relatively light, zesty lager.  I had a couple and Lanie even had a few sips before switching back to wine.

A rare sight to behold, Lanie hoisting a brew; not just any brew, mind you, but a "Kolsch"!

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 – By this time on our cruise, we’d entered the Middle Rhine, a beautiful stretch winding through centuries old vineyards lining the hillsides, with dozens of ancient castles perched on top of the hills.  While docking at Koblenz, Germany, Lanie and I took a tour up to a mammoth stone fortress overlooking the city.  This was on the other (East) side of the river, and we rode a gondola across the Rhine and up to the fortress.  Connie and Addison went on a different tour to nearby Marksburg Castle.  Later that afternoon Addison and I walked a short distance to a museum which featured old autos and aircraft; very interesting.

Vineyards stretching up the hills along the Rhine

Hanging out on the upper deck of the Viking Tialfi

Wednesday, September 28, 2016 -  Our stop and tour today was near Heidelberg, where we took a bus for about 45 minutes to the gigantic Schloss Heidelberg overlooking this beautiful old city on the banks of the Neckar River.  It was near here in 2005 that we, with Emily, spent a few nights in an old castle overlooking the Neckar near the little town of Neckarzimmen.. 

Heidelberg along the Neckar River; the view from the Schloss

Thursday, September 29, 2016 -  On this day we stopped on the French side of the Rhine for a walking tour of Strasbourg; and then later that day Lanie and I took a wine tasting tour into the countryside West of Strasbourg. I think they called this the Alsace wine region of France; mostly white wines but also a regional version of Pinot Noir.  Very nice.  Connie and Addison opted for a tour of the nearby Mercedes factory.

Strasbourg (I believe)!

Another Castle on the Rhine!

Friday, September 30, 2015 -  With our week long cruise nearing its end, our last tour was near Breisatz, Germany, where we boarded a bus and drove for over an hour into the Black Forest of SW Germany.  Here, while the ladies browsed the shops in a little, forested town, Addison and I took a short hike up into the hills, walking for much of the way along a beautiful bubbling creek.

Cruising in the Black Forest region of S. Germany

Saturday, October 1, 2016 -  We said goodbye to our Cruise crew in the morning.  Most notable among them was Boyan, the cruise activities director and a number of folks in food service, several of them from the Phillipines; and all very friendly.  Boyan came from Eastern Europe, Serbia I believe, as did a good number of the crew we interacted with. 

Deep in the Black Forest!

 Anyhow, we were docked in Basel, Switzerland, and soon took a taxi to the train station where we managed to find our train to Milan in plenty of time.  The train trip took about 4 hours as it wound its way through the Swiss and Italian Alps; a quite beautiful trip, though some of it was through long tunnels.  Once at the Central Station in Milan, we got a little bit of a rude surprise as the rental car that Addison had reserved was much too small to carry our collective luggage as well as the four of us (tiny trunk could only hold one large bag); and the rental car company had no other cars available that day. We tried several other rental car companies, but it was around 6 PM by then; and most were closed or closing up.  So we had two choices; 1) stay in Milan overnight, or 2) catch a train to Florence, and then try to figure out how to get to our timeshare resort outside of Florence, all in one evening.  We opted for staying in Milan and hopefully getting a larger car in the AM. 

Parting shot from our Rhine cruise, a Castle, of course!

The original rental car company was right across the street from the LeGare Hotel; Lanie and Connie had already gone to the hotel bar to wait out the rental car fiasco that afternoon.  So we stayed there at this very nice, if a bit spendy, hotel; and ate our first dinner in Italy a short block away at a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff.

They call these "Caravan Parks" in Europe!