WE Cruise the Rhine
The Route
I've drawn this by hand, so our actual distance covered was likely more, over 800km.
The plan
She has consented to do carry-on only luggage, as we have a couple of multi-hour periods where a big bag would be painful to deal with. We reached a good agreement on what is really essential travel stuff.
Itinerary
- Monday May 12th to Montreal, then overnight to Amsterdam arriving May 13. No one had announced direct flight when we booked all this.
- Stay in Amsterdam at the Rho Hotel
- See the sites in Amsterdam until we board our boat the AmaPrima on May 14.
- May 15, we stay docked the first night, and go on a canal tour in Amsterdam in the morning
- May 16, we dock at Dusseldorf
- walking tour of Dussledorf
- walking tour of Cologne
- May 17, we dock at Rudesheim
- bike tour of the Rheingau
- Siegfried's Mechanical Music cabinet
- May 18, we dock at Ludwigshafen (Mannheim)
- Ladenberg bike tour (him)
- Heidelberg walking tour (her)
- May 19, we dock at Strasbourg
- Strasbourg walking tour for sleepyheads
- May 20, we dock at Breisach
- Colmar walking tour
- May 21, we dock at Basel and disembark, then loiter about Basel for ~6 hours.
- Late May 21, fly from Basel to London Gatwick on EasyJet, arriving 22:20
- Stay at the Courtyard London Gatwick Airport
- May 22, fly from Gatwick to Halifax on Westjet arriving at 1:35PM
I've bought a European SIM card, so should have data everywhere and a UK telephone number. Update: it activated with no problems, but voice calls and texting only work in the UK! Doh! But data was fine, fast, and plentiful. I tethered my normal phone and her's to the euro-burner containing 3.com's SIM, and only used (IIRC) 2 GB of the 12 GB I bought.
The Reality
May 12
Had a weird dream that our boat had an adult sized playground set. I got in trouble for practicing swing tag moves.
Spent the morning installing precision fit, so possibly squirrel proof, armour in our soffit. Possibly trapping Rockette Squirrel inside. Feel my wrath, wily rodent.
Lobster roll lunch provided by in-laws, followed by chauffeur service to the airport. Thank you!
Smooth flight to Montreal. A bit long lingering at the international terminal. We split a soggy spring roll and 3 chicken wings from the Thai Express to stave off h-anger. Then into the international area. Some exotic livery - Qatari, one I didn't recognize and some more ordinary:
Boarding Air Canada's flight to Amsterdam, we are happy to find that her trick of selecting 2 seats with one between them paid off. We have 27 K, J and H to ourselves. A 787 Dreamliner, which is great. But showing wear and tear. I guess they’re not so new anymore.
Some interesting smells. The guy across the aisle from me is reading a guide book on Egypt and smells like the inside of a pyramid.
The gent perspiring heavily and labouring down the aisle smelled like Dad’s truck cab. The one following him had nice sandalwood aftershave, albeit a bit too much.
Slept a bit, some of it cranked sideways with my head snuggled against her leg. This resulted in a sore back (psoas?) which yoga on the ship cured.
May 13
Landed at Schipol after a long, mostly sleepless night. Just before landing, we had a great view of Dutch engineering off-shore:
Train to Centraal Station with minor confusion. You'd think I would have remembered from 15 years ago. We sat along the waterfront and acclimated for a while in the sun, then walked to Rho Hotel with good navigation and dumped our luggage. Possibly grudging approval from her of our luggage's superior wheels for cobblestone streets. The Rho is a decently old hotel, not historic. Lots of tiny meandering hallways and typical small European elevator. The room was fairly spacious though, and completely functional.
We walked around the canals, then had early dinner at a Dam Square outdoor cafe. To bed early, but awake again midnight to 0200h. History podcast to get back to sleep. The Oilers lost!
May 14
We had a pretty good breakfast featuring eggs and sausage, then walked 3km inland to the Rijksmuseum. Toured around almost all of it. The most famous painting may be Vermeer's The Milkmaid. If not, it's Rembrandt's The Night Watch, which is being restored. 
Some parts of the painting were much shinier than I remember from my visit in 2008. I could be misremembering. Rested in the garden outside, then walked around the Museumplein a bit.
Walked partway back to hotel, but stopped at The Cafe Gruter for sustenance. Flammakuchen is almost pizza. Beetled onwards back to hotel, as we discovered my navigation error prevented using the tram.
Picked up our stored luggage, then splurged €25 for a taxi to the AmaPrima. It is very luxurious by my simple prairie boy standards. A cosmopolitan crew, so far (I think) Russian, Malay or Thai, Chinese, Bulgarian(?). Update: crew is mostly Romanian and Mayanmarian. It looks like the focus here is eating, and maybe drinking. Keeping calorie gain under +2000 calories a day will be the challenge. Spoiler: it wasn't a challenge, they were very good at keeping portion sizes reasonable. I actually lost half a pound over the entire journey!
On-boarding with Steve the Yogi on gym safety and Rolf the cruise director on everything else.
Welcome dinner of short ribs for her and sea bass for him. Table mates were Glen and Kathleen from a retirement community in San Jose. She’s an everyday housewife who spends too much time in her silo, cuz the kids are launched. He’s a retired CPA with a trophy wife.
Bulgarian (update Irani Persian, 30 years in LA practicing medicine) ladies dominating the nightlife. We retired fairly early.
May 15
Flow yoga with Steve at 0700h, in the lounge unfortunately. Me and half a dozen yoga ladies, most of them the party animals from the previous night. Sun deck was too cold, about 8C. Small breakfast, then Amsterdam canal cruise with Harry. Sat with R.C. and Donna from Vancouver. Harry had some interesting facts about Amsterdam, so worth the effort. I think maybe even better than my usual favourite, a bike tour.
Off on the cruise. We are ripping down the Amsterdam-Rhine connector canal.
The first lock at Xxx raised us 2-3m. Lunch with Bob and Judy from San Jose. I think I am making up those names. Was it the two from dinner last night?
Dinner with Barry and Jackie and John. The former two are from Cochrane. Barry managed a large team at a well servicing company mostly in the northwest, Jackie is spending their money on bling. She might be a banker. Pleasant people for the most part. John is a bit of an enigma. He muttered something about being free of the shackles of caring for an elderly relative (mother?) and now spending his inheritance. Sounds like he's from NYC, but he lives in SoCal. Also nice company. We came up with a theory that he reviews cruises.
Moving along all night at 18kph. We slept well, lullabied by the droning diesel. Captain Peter later informed us that we burnt 25.000 liters of fuel on the trip. Sounds low, we moved a big boat over 800km. ~30 liters per km? Our car burns about 20% as much.
May 16
Beginner yoga with Steve. My fellow yogis are actually mostly Iranian MDs from LA. Some of them might be cosmetic surgeons who have worked on themselves. The ladies coerced some of their husbands to join us.
We docked in Dusseldorf at 51.23N, 6.77E.
Walked with Ruth over to the nearby Basilika St. Lambertus, and then about the streets of this old part of the town. Altbier tasting at a local pub, then some free time, which she and I used to go inside the Basilica. Very interesting. Some old bones and other relics.
Ruth wasn't too great a guide. But the free time was adequate.
After lunch, bus ride to Cologne and tour of the most impressive cathedral with Ulli, who was a great guide. Ulli was more into entertaining than an info dump, but still informative.
Meanwhile, the AmaPrima had sailed on to a rural point somewhere near Zons where our bus met it. We carried on sailing past Cologne. Very nice sunset behind the cathedral.
Dinner with Sault Ste Marie X and Y and Philadelphia Steve and Jen. Jen is an occasional yoga attendee. Steve is an alpha male. And Anne and Danielle. Anne is a 90 year-old grandmother and Danielle is her 20 year-old granddaughter. Anne has taken all six of her grandchildren on some exotic trip now, this one being the last. Anne is totally spry, gave both her and me fuzzy feelings about our own mothers.
The Strings of the Lowland (two violins and guitar - use ecosia to find them) entertained us in the lounge. Very professional musicians. Somehow we dumped them ashore in the middle of the night as we sailed on.
May 17
Yoga at 0700h. Getting some kinks out, but sprained something in the base of my right foot sitting on toes.
She is sick, seems like a cold. Maybe COVID, but doesn't seem to be the right symptoms.
A really excellent sail through the Rhine Gorge to Rudesheim, past many castles. I had to wake her up to enjoy it.
This is a typical view as we went through the Rhine Gorge, of the Burg (Castle) Rheinstein:
Moving up from the bottom of the image:
- the alarmingly low level of the water showing a big gravel beach
- folks camping along the shore, seemingly at any old place
- lush trees, full of loud birds
- a castle of 800-1000 years of age
- rolling, steep hills
- nice blue sky with puffy clouds. We had excellent weather for the entire trip.
This one is now a restaurant and hotel. €130/nacht and up. Most castles are still privately owned.
Docked at Rudesheim in front of the Eye, for Reisling tasting, followed by gondola ride up to the Niederwald Monument. It remembers the emergence of Germany as the European power, after a solid beat down of France. The tour guide told a good story. Rode the gondola back down and walked through town. No potions for her cough.
After dinner with Anne and Danielle, Siegfried's Mechanical Museum. Pretty marvelous. I could have had a replica of Marie Antoinette's pneumatic music box for €3000.
Neil Diamond impersonator had audio problems. He did sound like Neil. But too loud, so we retired early.
We were docked until 0230h. I think the crew got the night off to party onshore. This is a party town.
May 18
Up at 0400h to see night activity. There was none. Sky wasn’t too dark.
Later, saw a nuclear power plant while going up on the sun deck for yoga!
Smoothie bowl for breakfast.
Birdwatching on deck. Swans! Storks! Kites!
Lunch with Texas sisters Lara and Katy. Katy is with me and the Persians doing yoga with Steve. Dad was supposed to be on the cruise with them, but had life threatening pneumonia 6 weeks ago.
Docked at Heidlburg.
Bike tour to Landenfeld with flat dad, Jancy and Juans.
Guide Juan is a retired mechanical engineer who built power plant turbines. Spanish, but has lived in Germany forever. Cruiser Juan is retired FedEx pilot, with wife Jancy tending the home fires. We were accompanied by yogi Steve, who had to nurse Juan's broken bike back to the ship. My bike performed just fine, so I think it was just bad luck with the other bike.
On the return, I stopped to take a phone picture of storks stalking in a mowed field:
Flat Dad was a cardboard cutout that Lara and Katy loaned to me. They said he would enjoy a bike ride.
She abandoned the planned Heidlburg tour and went to the Speyer cathedral where she lucked into a classical choir performing.
During happy hour, we chatted with family of ex-military from Guam now living in Frankfurt. Mike and xxx. Dinner essentially by ourselves.
Later in the lounge, I chatted with Raymond from Atlanta who has done his own research on health but is off the wagon on the cruise. So bought him a beer. Wife the patent lawyer got my bespoke bike pun.
Dancing a bit. Is she recovering? Maybe it was COVID?
May 19
She coughed quite a bit during night. But such a trouper. Through a tall lock at 0530h.
Morning aerobics with Steve. He tells me he is from Mumbai, currently lives in Bulgaria.
Dock at 48.58571, 7.79608 next to scrap metal muncher. There's something more to where we dock than tourism. I think there's some border clearance issues, and moorage fees, and even congestion. Twice, we moored alongside another boat. Once, we detached so they could leave, and then moored to the dock. It'd be interesting to be in on the logistics of the trip.
Bus to central Strasbourg. Our walking tour guide Vincent est tres sardonique. Strasbourg is very pretty and clean and green. Cathedral was great, lots of information from Vincent. The clock is a bit silly.
Bought honey water for cough!
Back on the ship, the disembark instructions from Rolf are the highlight of the afternoon.
Chef's table (one of six) with Sergio and Linda at the small and intimate captain's restaurant in the stern. He's an ancient, weathered Brazilian fighter pilot, and she is an 80-year old actively working psychologist. They live in Rio de Janeiro, with a house in the mountains to escape the mob. They were both widowed and have now been married for 25 years. A great dinner, embracing the communication challenges and learning about a very interesting couple. The seven course meal was excellent also.
Over to the lounge for some disco with Tutz acting as a DJ, and to bed.
May 20
Only Katy and me for yoga so harder than usual. I guess the Persians discoed too late.
She is back in bed. I had oatmeal for breakfast. Plus a pastry. I doubt the onboard baker is making more than dinner rolls and perhaps some of the simpler pastries. Croissants? Impossible. The bread is all good.
Bus to Cormal. Our guide Solene is definitely French. One of the reasons I was excited to go on this trip was to see the current cultural environment in the Alsace region. Almost all our guides emphasized the ping pong game of Alsace-Lorraine being part of Germany or France, alternating every few decades. Some of them were German, some French. Some were Alsatian first, and proud of their distinct dialect.
A microclimate makes this area dry and hotter Solene is a good guide. Cormal is not as old a town as some downstream. First WW2 cemetery I’ve seen, actually gave me an emotional response.
The cathedral not as pretty as other two. Yellow sandstone not pink. Touristy but nice streets.
A street mime broke silence to complain about my poor donation of 10¢ (€ cent), all I had for coin: "Are you kidding me?."
Free time not as fun without her. Nice scenery along the canal.
I failed to transact an Aperol Spritz at the Brasserie Les Dominicans. I think they misunderstood my pointing at the others' table to mean I wanted a menu, not what they were drinking.
After being ignored for 10 minutes, I gave up and slunk off. But I did get passion fruit sugar water from Monoprice to make change, so I could tip Solene.
Lots of coughing from my fellow tourists on the bus ride back.
She had a restful morning, so we had lunch with 2 Texas school marms who are aging well. "Can we visit Canada or are you mad at us?"
Lazy afternoon watching the shore go by, including numerous swans:
These two were making a perfect valentine, but moved before I could click the shutter button.
Chatted with a friendly lady from St. Louis but now living in Houston. "Sorry about Trump." She coincidentally met her sister's best friend from back in STL is on the cruise, and now they are buddies. Cleared one bridge by about 30cm.
If I had stood up without paying attention, it would have smacked me in the side of the head. Not as much commercial traffic for some reason. Is it the weekend?
Packing up.
Dinner with Scott the sales-y guy and Holly the accountant from Rochester NY, a drink in the lounge and to bed.
May 21
Up too early, biggish breakfast and final packing. Left luggage with AmaPrima and walked over the TriPays bridge into Germany. There were two border control folks, but they looked at us while grilling an ordinary looking bloke and waved us through. Then a right turn into Schweiss. A new country!
Took the tram to downtown. People seem grumpy. At the tourist info office, a pleasant young Lena sold us 2 x €26 worth of bus tour tickets for the afternoon. The morning was sold out.
Walked around including in to Basel Munster (cathedral) and down ritzy shopping street. Cinnamon bun and cappuccino. Met some of the Persians, who are carrying on with their vacation on their own, touring more of Switzerland. There is an option through Ama to do a few days of post-cruise via bus. The pre-cruise in Amsterdam did not get high marks from those who mentioned doing it.
Bus tour was decent, if a bit too high tech with multiple languages from iPads. Annoying old people. We had a short stop at the Swiss side of the bridge we walked across in the morning, featuring the sculpture celebrating the meeting of three countries, with out boat in the background on the French side:
After our tour, we lunched at café across from Rat Haus (city hall), a club sandwich for her and croquet monsieur for him. Finally an Aperol Spritz to drink, which wasn’t bad. All this came to roughly twice the price it would have been in Canada.
Taxi (first Tesla!) back to boat (in France) and then to airport (in Switzerland), arriving about 3 hours earlier than necessary.
A long wait until we were allowed to verify passports. The boss lady insisted we check the big bag (free of charge, at least).
2 hour loiter in boarding area, trying to not fall asleep. Onto an A320 with lots of room and large overhead luggage space. Our luggage would have fit easily. Grr.
She had a bad coughing fit at one point, but otherwise an easy flight on easyJet chasing the setting sun. This was just offshore, after overflying the Somme:
Clearing customs was straightforward and automated, and happily, our luggage arrived at the carousel before we did, unlike our previous visit to this area. It took some wandering, a monorail ride, advice from lorry driver, confusion and lots of walking, but finally the sick wife and I got to the hotel. The key event was remembering the magic device in my pocket that could map a walking route for us.
Enroute, we ran into three elderly Italians looking for the "drop off zone", where their friend was to meet them. They were lurking in the hedgerow next to a construction barrier. Pitch dark. Little English skills. We suggested they seek advice in the Hilton, but they said that was how they ended up here. So we slunk off.
Decent sleep though once we found our hotel, in a nice but slightly worn room. The Gatwick version of Courtyard by Marriot follows the NA model of giant accommodations.
May 22
Up a bit early, down to the restaurant for an improper English breakfast (included yogurt and fruit, no toast, no blood sausage, half size - only about 1000 calories)
Load up the pack mule, and retrace our steps to the North Terminal. It was a lot easier in the daylight and knowing where we were going. No geriatric Italians in the hedges, meno male.
Bought some Aperol aperitif in duty free, then a long wait in boarding area for the tardy Westjet 737max. Easy flight home. Captain America: The Homie is a bad movie. Read some of Dominion by Tom Holland. Slept a bit. Dropped ear bud under seat. I can fold myself down to look under an airplane seat. Thanks, Steve!. The fellow behind me found it. Incessant chatter from the nursing students (?) ahead of us in row 26. My sound proofing technique could use some work, maybe.
The in-laws ferried us home to a lovely meatloaf she had prepared. Slept ~13 hours.
Would I do it again? Definitely. It was a major expense for us, but I have half a dozen life time memories, so well worth the cost. Walking on the boat was such a lovely burst of decadent glee. I've seen some of the best piles of rocks man has ever created. I had the best companion, even as she suffered through RSV, COVID or "just a cold", and put up with my manic navigation through airports and city streets.
I got a better appreciation of the northern Europe mindset. I've seen what 2000 years of civilization does to a world class river. My companion did all the choosing for the cruise company and other logistics, and they all were perfect.
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