The Rhine, Swiss Alps, and Amsterdam, June 25, 2018 departure
Anyone going on this particular voyage? For those who have been, what is the weather like in late June-early July for the Northbound trip? What clothing would you suggest? Will I need warm clothing for the Jungfrau excursion? Thanks!
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We took an extra 2 days before the trip so we could explore Zurich and Bern on our own, and an extra 2 days in Amsterdam at the end and I highly recommend both. In Bern we loved seeing the bears at the Bear Pit and having local food and beer at the restaurant along it. It is a reasonable walk from your hotel and is also accessible by tram. Best of all you get to walk past the astronomical clock tower in Old Town. If you watched the TV special Genius (about Albert Einstein) you will recognize this . We also did visit the Einstein museum on our own, its also a short walk from your hotel. If you are a crossword puzzle fanatic (as I am) you can even get to stand on the banks for the RIVER AARE.
The Tauck excursions are great, but I highly recommend that you remain in Cologne during your time there instead of rushing back to the boat for lunch and take the chance to visit the chocolate museum and maybe even sample some local beer and sausage in one of the riverside restaurants.
We loved our time in Amsterdam at the end of the trip, and in addition to Taucks itinerary we made time to visit Ann Frank's house, the Red Light District (a night time walking tour with Viatours) the Van Gogh museum and even a full day tour to Bruges (Viatours).
All in all, the more you walk around, the more you will see. Have fun!
Yes, the Viatour day trip to Bruges does take 3+ hours. In fact, we arranged to do this on the same day we disembarked from our riverboat tour which arrived in Amsterdam early that morning.
Everyone was supposed to leave the ship by 9 AM and our tour left from across the street from our docking point at 9:30. We had arranged to leave the ship early (I think about 7:30 AM) and were planning to try to check-in at our hotel, leave our bags and cab back to the Viator meeting place. The beauty of Tauck is that our tour director offered to take our bags to the Conservatorium hotel and check us in in our absence. When we returned from Bruges at about 9 PM that night, our keys were waiting for us and our bags were in our room. It was a long day but definitely worth it, and we got to sleep in hte bus on the way back to Amsterdam.
Although we had planned 2 full days on our own in Amsterdam, we could only book our half day trip to Keukenhoff gardens ( it was tulip season) for the following day, so we had no choice if we wanted to see Bruges. Unfortunately, it rained once we got to Bruges, but Bruges is beautiful even in the rain. And, furthermore, to our good fortune, our next day at the gardens was filled with sunshine. An additional perk of our scheduling is that we were also able to book the 2 hour evening walking tour of the red light district on the same day as our Garden trip. It might seem to you that we do not leave ourselves any time to relax on our trips and you are right. We are retired, so we get to relax when we return home. There is too much to see when we travel and we try to take advantage of everything.
We are off on March 21 for our 7th (or 8th) Tauck trip. We are doing The Essence of Japan. Any advice from anyone who has done that?