A really straightforward journey with KLM from Cardiff. With only a 40 minute transfer at Schipol (Amsterdam), to our joy and amazement, our bags caught the same flights!
After all the foul wind and rain weâve had at home, another great surprise⊠Sunshine!Â
A quick, easy transfer to the ship - just 15 minutes. All aboard by 11:15am just over 4 hours from Cardiff Airport.
Then another bigger surprise. This is our 10th trip with Viking. The Hotel Manager asked us would we like a upgrade? âOf course not!" we said - oh no we didnât!
A double stateroom upgrade with a very very good bottle of red wine waiting in it - Christmas came early.
We went for a stroll around Basel; Christmas markets in full force flowing with GlĂŒhwein. A delightful way to spend an afternoon.
And so, back on board, a nap and time for dinner.
Weâve both had birthdays in the last few days. At dessert time, the maitre dâhotel and the entire (and I mean entire) waiting staff appear with a beautiful mango and passion fruit cake-like creation and sing âHappy Birthdayâ. A really nice end to a really good meal. ExceptâŠ
Back to the stateroom and sitting in the middle of the table is a bottle of champagne (type) and two glasses!
Who knows what tomorrow might bring, if Day 1 is any measure by which to judge!!! Maybe we get to take the ship home as our personal yacht?
Docked this morning in Breisach, after sailing overnight. This morningâs outing was a trip through the Black Forest.
Our local guide came on the mic; weâd heard those tones before! On another tour from Breisach to Colmar in 2012, weâd had the same guide. We recognised the pleasant musical meter of Jackâs voice; Â a Welsh speaking ex-pat who at one time lived not 5 miles from us in Barry. (I know many people claim nothing special comes from Barry, but he must be an exception; well informed with a great sense of humour).
Clearly planned for more typical Decembers, there were just a few, fairly brief, stops. The scenery is delightful, not spectacular, but well worth seeing. Snow would have made it spectacular; impossible this year with temperatures at 12â at 9am. Only the distant high mountains had managed a smattering.
The main stop was what can only be described truthfully as a tourist trap - not as bad as many, but nonetheless⊠A restaurant selling coffee & black-forest gateau; a glass blowing workshop and store selling its own and higher quality imported items from Scandinavia; a cuckoo clock store with other âtraditionalâ local items: beer steins, Steif teddy bears and wood carvings. Its biggest âattractionâ was a giant outdoor cuckoo clock (sans cuckoos) that had figurines going around, carousel-like, every half-hour.
However, never let it be said that Germans have no sense of humour. Directions to the toiletsâŠ
After returning to the ship, and lunch we had a quiet afternoon on board recovering from the excitement of the morning.
We docked in Kehl - the German side of the Rhine. The opposite bank is Strasbourg, France. Previously, you would hardly notice driving across the bridge between the countries. Now, in the aftermath of the Paris atrocity, thereâs a pre-EU-style border post on the bridge entering France. Passports needed (although they waved our coaches through).
Strasbourg is a good sized city, 7th largest in France, home to most EU and Council of Europe institutions. I learnt that the Council was established first in London, by Winston Churchill (heâs allowed one mistake!) and is a separate organisation to the EU. Both organisations are not the least bit shy about âinvestingâ large numbers of taxpayersâ Euros, Pounds, Kuna, etc in themselves. Their buildings are palatial. We drove past most of them.
Old Strasbourg still remains and this is where we spent most of our time.
Strasbourg was the home of the very first Christmas market (15th Century, I think) and now hosts 11 separate markets. Around the old town, they have a real flair for decorating the buildings.
The cathedral is massive, even by catholic Europeâs standards, and here we found one of the most impressive nativity scenes Iâve ever seen.
This is where, for those who choose, midnight mass will be celebrated. Given the austere look of the seating and the fact that it will be a full 2 hour mass, returning to the ship at 2am Christmas morning, weâve opted out. (Eventually, 39 fellow travellers attended).
Kehl is a much smaller town, largely comprising a single shopping street, lots of parks and churches and some upmarket housing. Great for an afternoon stroll.
After dinner, Christmas Eve was marked by a presentation on European Christmas traditions accompanied by large quantities of the Christmas fare that accompanies them: stollen, ginger-bread, sweet cakes, glĆ«hwein, hot chocolate with rum or brandy or amaretto or (think of another European countryâs favourite spirit!).
Staggered to bed.
Our morning was spent cruising up the Middle Rhine, a land of castles dating back to the 12th Century, although most had been destroyed during conquests by the Sun King (Louis XIV of France) and others over many centuries of conflicts. The majority were restored in the 18th and 19th Century and a few have been âupgradedâ to expensive 21st Century hotels. Progress??
The weather was fresh but really pleasant, especially as we sailed between 9am - 11am, arriving in Koblenz at lunchtime.
What a pleasant, pretty city and the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine rivers. We docked where the rivers meet, within a stoneâs throw of the city centre.
Within 100 metres of the docking was a cable car service to the old fortress city, set high on a hill overlooking the Rhine. Spectacular views.
The town itself has plenty of interest, historic and modern. The banks of the rivers are parks. I could spend more time here, no problem at all.
Dinner: âA Taste of Germanyâ. Every recent cruise has an âA Taste of âŠâ evening. To me, this is the one part of a Viking cruise that fails.Â
The restaurant always serves great food, but this has become increasingly âinternationalâ (American to be honest), whereas, when we started, at least one course every evening was a âRegional Specialityâ.Â
So, the âTaste of âŠâ evening puts together a range of regional dishes, but as a semi-buffet served in 2 locations. This results in organised chaos as diners line up to see whatâs available. Tonight the queue averaged 20 minutes.
The quality of the food suffers; it's being kept warm in self-serve dishes (also, itâs dumped on the plate instead of having the chefâs beautiful presentation of the dish). Vegetables and sides are self served and add to the plateâs less than appetising appearance. Below average musicians move around adding to the congestion (and being Germany, playing loudly, killing conversation).
Weâve suffered 3 of these already this year, and this was the worst. The pork belly had been hacked to pieces and was as tough as old boots. Chicken sitting under hot lights: Sahara dry. Why put the soup at the end of the main course buffet? Who wants their main course plate going cold whilst eating their soup? Why canât the waiting staff be allowed to bring the soup from the kitchen? It looked the best thing on the menu. It might have even lessened the number of people queueing up for main course.
Iâm sure many enjoy it. To me, itâs the 7th level of Danteâs Inferno (Iâd even bet the Minotaur would enjoy it!). You canât even escape to the Aquavit Smorgasbord Venue, as this location is commandeered as an overflow dining area.
Thankfully itâs only one evening on this cruise. If theyâre on future cruises, weâre eating off-ship.
Overnight to Cologne, a lovely city weâve visited before.
A Sunday after Christmas, so all of the shops, except food outlets, were closed, as were the Christmas markets (except one). It was busier than Oxford Street on the first day of the January sales! Clearly, this is the time wise German men find best to take their wives shopping!
There was an amazing display, across several window, of Steif teddies. I now fully understood the German manâs wisdom, or else thereâd have been stowaway bears on our KLM back home.
We had a final look around the final Christmas market, having enjoyed the afternoon in Cologne, a city thatâs always worth a visit.
The Netherlands tomorrow.
A pleasant day sailing along the Rhine and then into the Dutch canal system, stopping around lunch time at Kinderdijk. Weâve been here before; itâs a "pit-stop" for all ships sailing into or out of Amsterdam - a UNESCO site of 19 working Dutch windmills. In glorious sunshine, like today, very pretty.
However, as so many ships pass through Kinderdijk, the option to visit a working dairy farm, where traditional Gouda cheese is made, was offered. We took the option.
We walked through a pretty little village, which weâd never noticed before, boarded a ferry across the river and picked up the coach on the other bank. If this little car ferry wasnât there, itâs 45 minutes via the nearest bridge.
Twenty minutes later we exited the bus to what our local guide described as âEau dâCow-loneâ. Yes, this was indeed a real live working farm, not a tourist stop.
We were given an excellent tour by the owner. Itâs a family farm. His mother looked in her 80âs and was working in the cheese pressing area. The process is from udder to cheese; nothing happens to the milk which is piped directly from the milking shed to the cheese making area. It certainly pays off in the flavour. The smoothest, richest gouda Iâve tasted.
At around sunset, we returned to the ship to travel on to Amsterdam and a late afternoon flight home.
We docked conveniently for the centre of Amsterdam. Time to pack and leave the ship at 1pm for our transfer to Schipol Airport. Dieting to start immediately on landing in Cardiff!!