Survival and Emergency Preparedness

Knocking off a bucket list thing by doing a river cruise on the Rhine. Starting in Basel, Switzerland and ending in Amsterdam. We are going to tour Basel a couple days early and staying in Amsterdam a couple days after our 8 day cruise. Or you can go from Amsterdam to Basel as well but we thought putting the layover at the beginning would be better than at the end so we chose the Basel to Amsterdam one.

The cruise is called the Rhine Getaway on Viking which is a pretty popular river cruise. We make stops in France, Germany and the Netherlands before arriving in Amsterdam.

We do have internet on the boat so I try to stay in touch. We have stops everyday so will be pretty busy.

Itinerary is as follows...
Fly to Basel, Switzerland
Basel
Basel
Start Cruise...Basel Switzerland
Breisach, Germany
Strasberg, France
Speyer, Ger
Koblenz, Ger
Cologne, Ger
Kinderdijk, Neth
End...Amsterdam, Neth
Amsterdam
Fly home

7 hour flight to Amsterdam yesterday, 3 hour layover then another hour flight to Basel, Switzerland. Got in around 7:30 am local time which is about 1:30 am back home. Hit the ground running. Checked into our hotel. Then a walking tour of the old city, then a nap. Then walked over to the old/historic city section for dinner, then early to bed.

Up and at 'em this morning, took a guided tour of the city, had lunch while out and about are getting ready to go to dinner.

General info...
The standard of living is very high here. Average income is 90k. Average house cost is 1.6 million.

Food and supplies are also expensive which is why most locals shop in France. Basel is right on the border of France and Germany but you can drive across Switzerland in 2 hours. It is about 1/6 the size of Michigan.

Impressions...
-very clean city though I don't go to cities very much anymore so its hard to compare though this city is only about 175 thousand.
-very narrow residential streets, it seems most people live in apartments/townhouses.
-lots and lots of bikes, e-bikes, mopeds/scooters.
-public transport is very good.. buses and a first class rail system that is "free" to ride. Our hotel gave us passes but they haven't been checked even once. Just get on/get off.
-most natives here speak multiple languages, their particular swiss/german dialect, German, French, and English.
- natives here are friendly, they see a lot of foreigners due to the river cruises beginning and ending here..

We get on the river boat tomorrow afternoon.

Exchange rate is 1.19 Swiss francs to the USD.

Dinner tonight...2 hamburgers, fries and 2 beers was $60. No tip.. We don't eat out very often, so I don't know how that compares with the US. I suspect it's rather high comparatively, though I suspect 2 gourmet burgers, fries and beers might run $50 + tip in the states.

They do have good German beer here.

Weather has been a very pleasant 63 F during the day, good for walking around... 40s at night.

A note about immigration. Had to go through immigration when we arrived in Amsterdam. Basically stand in line, get scanned and proceed through.

The Basel Switzerland airport is interesting. You get off the plane and then pick up luggage. There are two exit doors, one for France the other for Switzerland. I don't know about France but there was no immigration check going into Switzerland.

Getting on the boat today. Will be in Germany tomorrow.

keep the story coming ...was interested in the river cruises.

Stopped in Breisach Germany today. The area around the town experienced heavy fighting during WWII. Allied bombers eventually destroyed 85% of the town.

There are many locks on the Rhine and because there are occasionally problems and because the authorities on the French side are dicks (one side is German, the other side is French) we were 6 hours late getting into town. That meant they couldn't do all the tours that were scheduled. We drove through the town but didn't get to tour it.

We did go to Colmar on the French side. Colmar is a middle ages town that has changed hands many times over the centuries. Saxons, Roman, German, Celts, Prussian, French, and just about everyone else.

It was the site of intensive fighting WWII in the Colmar pocket. As the allies pushed the Germans back to the Rhine. I had an uncle who fought there. Its also where Audie Murphy won the MOH. We drove the battle field.

The guide was a middle aged French woman who got quite emotional describing the battle, Murphy's participation, and her and many other French appreciation of the Americans. nice to know not all French are dicks.

The town itself has an "old town" section with original 15th and 16th century buildings. It was quite cool.

More later.

A word about river cruising.

There are a number of lines that do river cruises in Europe. We found Viking had a pretty good deal which included airfare. Of course you can add hotels and before and after extensions through Viking but those were much cheaper to do on your own. Except airfare was much better through Viking than what we could book.

You can do the Rhine River from Amsterdam to Basel or vice versa. They have boats that leave one way or another just about every day.

The boats hold 180 passengers. Ours has about 150 on board. The boats themselves are 443 ft long. 38 feet wide and 20 feet tall. They have 4 decks. Cabins are on decks 1,2& 3 aft. Dining is on deck 2 forward. The lounge/bar is on deck 3 forward. Deck 4 is the wheel house and an open, outside deck. The wheel house, awnings, antennas all fold down to fit under low bridges.

Crew quarters is on deck one forward. Deck 1 cabins are below the waterline. Cabins are a bit smaller than ocean cruise ships. The difference in price between deck 1 & 3 is about $2k/person

Our boat in Germany. The small windows just above the waterline is deck one. Super dupers are on deck 3, dupers on deck 2 and subdupers like us are on deck 1. Cabins are all the same size and we don't spend much time in them so we went with the cheapest, but it's not cheap route.


All Meals are included and beer and wine are included with meals. You can also buy a beverage package and or BYOB.

More later

The Rhine
The lower Rhine was straightened in the last century. Resembles a canal in many places with cement walls and locks. 50-200 yards wide in some places. We've gone through at least a dozen since leaving Switzerland. The southern end isn't very scenic.

More later

Docked in Germany, took a bus to France. Completely open borders. Later we walked across a bridge over the Rhine. Put one foot in Germany, one foot in france

Strasbourg, France. Strasbourg is a very old middle ages French town dating from 200 BC. Conquered and occupied by just about everyone over the centuries. Switched back and forth between Germany and France many times over the last century and a half.

Got a very good walking tour of the town today. Google it If you want to know more.

The boat did a traditional German meal tonight for dinner. It was outstanding.

Walking tour of Speyer Germany in the morning. Nice little town. We were then bussed to Worms, Germany where we got back on the boat. Sailed to the town of Rudesheim were we did another walking tour late afternoon.

Starting to get into wine country, lots of vineyards in the hills on both sides of the Rhine.

Today is castle day on the Rhine. There are 25+ castles between Bingen and Koblenz. Very cool part of the river. Very bendy and winding river here.

Left Rudesheim this morning. Its now about 1:30 pm here and we just arrived in Koblenz. They had weinerschnitzel for lunch today for lunch. It was excellent with the German beer they serve. Very much enjoying the German food.

Just waiting on a guided afternoon walking tour of Koblenz. Koblenz is where the Moselle and Rhine rivers come together.

A word about the included tours.

A guided tour is included every day usually in the morning. You can then buy additional tours. For example the walking tour of Speyer was included yesterday but the optional tour which included a german dinner in Rudesheim was around $150/person (which we didn't do). Some additional tours are less some are more. We did book an additional tour in Cologne and the Colmar pocket tour was optional.

So far we are enjoying the river cruise very much.