Two if by River

River cruise offers impressive picture of European grandeur

By Duane St. Clair

You don’t need planes, trains or automobiles for an awe-inspiring tour of Europe – just get on the boat.

River cruises in the history-rich continent make for a convenient mode of travel through out-of-theway historic cities, villages and buildings – or at least their remains or rebuilt replicas. The backdrop from the small, comfortable, well-appointed ships – offering top-notch service and amenities – is an ever-changing shoreline and landscape showcasing a historic evolution that, for the most part, remains much the same through the centuries.

Your stateroom is always with you, so there’s no frequent packing and unpacking. You get to meet and casually associate with fellow travelers. Our trip included tourists from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and across the United States.

The cruise was the focal point of a 12-day air, land and river tour that crossed four countries – France, Luxembourg, Germany and the Czech Republic. It visited amazing cathedrals and castles. It passed multitudes of hillside vineyards stretching above the Moselle and Middle Rhine rivers, as well as the riverside communities the vineyards and wineries fostered. It the tests of time and war and remain an everyday part of life. stopped for enchanting tours of winding cobblestone streets passed ancient shop and apartment buildings in small business centers, many of which have withstood

Left: One of the many picturesque villages that dot the Moselle and Rhine rivers. Opposite page: The Heidelberg Castle in Germany, built in the 12th Century, is a relic of the Renaissance era.

The eight-day, seven-night cruise is spent aboard the 112-passenger, two-deck Viking Theodor Fontane, one in the fleet of Viking River Cruises vessels that ply rivers in Europe, Russia, China, Southeast Asia and Egypt.

This excursion starts with two-night stay at the Crowne Plaza Paris and includes a bus tour of the more famous places in the romantic city – Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the massive Louvre Museum and the Arc de Triomphe, in addition to many other landmarks in the metropolis that draws millions of tourists. The next day is a bus ride to Luxembourg, en route to Trier, Germany.

The first daily walking tour, only a 90-minute trek, is Luxembourg, the capital of the country of 500,000 smack in the middle of France, Belgium and Germany.

Below: The ship’s lounge affords panoramic views of the European countryside. Bottom left: Passengers are served various German dishes during an Oktoberfest lunch on the ship’s partially covered sun deck. Bottom right: The 112-passenger, two-deck Viking Theodor Fontane docked near Reichsburg Castle.

Stephanie Peters, a German native and a Viking program director, has things well in hand.

Visitors are assigned to groups as local guides take them through the quaint city. At each tour stop, residents steeped with local knowledge and history tell of their communities, with light-hearted anecdotes included.

The center of Luxembourg is a compact shopping area with reasonable prices that draw shoppers from the countryside, as well as from France and Germany. Housing is expensive, so thousands commute there to work. Residents drive to a bordering country for gasoline because it’s cheaper, a guide notes. It’s the nation’s capital, but is so informal that the prime minister drives himself to his office, accessible through a simple doorway into a street-level building in the small government complex.

Memories of World War II remain and are discussed throughout the trip. The U.S. liberated Luxembourg from Nazi occupation, largely because of the aggressive Third Army, commanded by renowned Gen. George S. Patton. He and his wife are buried in the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, in a section separate from that of the 5,075 others who died in the Battle of the Bulge. Patton’s original burial site among all the others drew so many tourists it had to be moved.

After a short ride to the ship docked in Trier, Germany’s oldest city, there’s the captain’s reception in the upper deck lounge, followed by the first of eight gour- met dinners served nightly in the lower deck dining room.

Each day, breakfast is from a lavishly stocked buffet in the dining room, or sweets and coffee in the lounge. Because daily shore trips are generally limited to a half-day, lunch is usually available on board and includes varied hot morsels, sandwich, soup and dessert offerings on a buffet in the lounge or a sitdown in the dining room with different selections. Menus change daily.

The ship remains docked for on-shore trip to Trier, which dates to the Roman Empire. There are the remains of an ancient public bath and a 2,000-seat amphitheater modeled after the Colosseum in Rome and used for one of the same purposes – battles to the death. Many Romanera landmarks remain.

As the ship begins cruising the Moselle in the afternoon, the fascinating German countryside changes endlessly, with Stephanie pointing out highlights over a speaker system.

In these remote reaches, trains are predominant and trucks are few. Land that can be developed is at a premium. Stephanie, who offers commentary aboard buses, mentions that Germany, the size of Montana, has more than 80 million residents.

By mid-week, the cruise stops in Heidelberg to tour the city and its partly restored historic castle before it passes the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine rivers en route to Braubach, home of the Marksburg Castle. It is the only one along the Rhine dating to the Middle Ages that has not been ravaged by wars or feudal turmoil.

Displayed are suits of armor, from early examples with little or no protection to custom-crafted full-body suits of steel. Also displayed are hand weapons, cookware in a kitchen with a fireplace tall enough to walk in, some furniture, a toilet that seemed to simply hang over the side yard, a bed and rocking crib that would be unusable by today’s standards, and an awesome view of the Rhine River.

Back on board, the chef and her small staff offer a lunch of German food including brats, sauerkraut, potato salad (unlike most found in Columbus), beer (of course) and pastries, all served on the sun deck with tables under an aluminum awning. The gourmet German dinner the night before had started with lambs lettuce salad with chopped eggs and a black bread crou- ton, crispy bacon and potato dressing, and cream of white asparagus soup. Entrees were filet of flounder with onions and bacon, rice pilaf and just-cooked leaf spinach; or panroasted duck breast, leeks and Duchess potatoes. Desserts were Bavarian crème with fruit jelly or black forest ice cream with liqueur-soaked cherries, whipped cream and chocolate shavings. All dinners included unlimited red or white wine from the company’s own winery.

The cruise through the Rhine basin passes an endless string of castles, each with a different story and some still in use. Stephanie tells about each. When the ship enters the Main River, the landscape becomes less enthralling as hills and forests diminish.

As the cruise ends – after navigating 29 locks, 19 on the Main and 10 on the Moselle – the tour heads overland with stops at Wurzburg and then Nuremberg, for a sobering view of what had been the stomping grounds of Hitler and the Third Reich. The buses visit Imperial Palace, a huge coliseum-like structure Hitler never finished. It is across a man-made lake from Zeppelin Field, where the huge airships once operated, and which Hitler used for his massive rallies as the Third Reich was developed in his favorite city.

This well-maintained building, containing a store and a home, is hundreds of years old and one of many carefully preserved buildings in Cochem, Germany.

Allied bombers destroyed much of the city. The 10th Century boundary walls and some buildings within them remain, but most of the city has been rebuilt with architecture not in keeping with ancient history.

The tour ends after an afternoon bus ride to the Hilton Prague for another twonight stay. The next day, a bus and walking tour includes the pleasant city’s historic old town and marketplace. Then, another long day-long flight home.

The trip, a fascinating, enjoyable experience, cost barely five figures, even with trip insurance, minimal souvenir and happy hour expenses, and a handful of meals in Paris and Prague that were not included. cs

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.