Viking River Cruise Kinderdijk (Netherlands)  Day 6

 

Today was the longest day of cruising that we had experienced. After setting off from Cologne in the early evening, it was just after lunch that we arrived at Rotterdam - the Netherlands at last!

 

Our excursion today was to the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage site at Kinderdijk and again a stunning site to see a large group of windmills :)

 

 

Back on board we had our farewell dinner - the food was fantastic all cruise and then it was time to try and pack suitcases as we were to disembark in Amsterdam at 8 am the next morning.

 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our first (and it won't be our last) river cruise!

 



 













Viking River Cruise - Day 6 Cologne

 

 

Cologne was magnificent. We arrived just after breakfast and went on a walking tour of the Old City. When we got to the Town Hall there were dozens of couples waiting to get married. Apparently it is a common practice on Fridays, then off to the Cologne Cathedral and an afternoon spent walking through the old town.

 

We left Cologne that evening - what a spectacular city

 



Viking River Cruise Braubach/Koblenz Day 5



 

This was a really special day as we cruised through the Rhine gorge. We left early and by breakfast time we were in the midst of the gorge and admiring the castles and scenery:

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was Marksburg Castle at Braubach - truly spectacular and worth all of the steps up and down :)

 

 

 

In the afternoon we arrived at Koblenz - junction of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers and spent the afternoon up at the fortifications and strolling around town. One thing that was a shame was that there was another Viking ship moored next to us and our view was into someone else's cabin. Not happy Jan!

 

Note to Viking - if I am paying for the rooms on the top floor then I expect to be able to see the view and not have a ruddy great Viking river cruise ship moored right next to me!







Viking River Cruise - Day 4 Mannheim/Heidelberg

 

 

After a night of passing through locks, the next morning found us well and truly in Germany and tied up at Mannheim.  Our morning excursion was the beautiful university city of Heidelberg on the Neckar River.  After the now familiar hubbub with tickets for buses etc we spent about 30 minutes travelling to Heidelberg. Peter and I had spent a couple of hours here on our last tour and we really wanted an opportunity to explore the city in greater detail.

 

Our first stop was Heidelberg Castle which was described as a ruin - a bit of a misnomer as there were still substantial parts of the castle that were intact:

 

We then spent some time wandering the cobbled streets and looking at all of the shops!  We returned to the ship for lunch and cruised to Rudesheim. In the evening we took the optional dinner tour to Rudesheim - it was great to have the little train pick us up and bring us back to the ship.  We enjoyed the optional tour but again nice but overpriced!