Trip Report - Rhine & Moselle Southbound May 13 departure
We're back from a lovely trip. Europe had a May heat wave, which took us a little by surprise because it was not in the forecasts when we were packing, and we wished we had brought fewer coats and more pairs of shorts! The good news is that we had very little rain and lots of sunny days. Our Tauck guide, who has done this trip many, many times and is from Germany said she had never seen the Rhine Falls before on a sunny day!
This is a good itinerary, but comes in second to The Blue Danube. As many others have noted, most of the destinations on this trip require bus rides, some of them very long (Luxembourg, Trier, Rhine Falls), which gets tedious. But the destinations were worth it in our opinion--you just have to be mentally prepared for it. We were spoiled on the Danube with the ship being docked right at the places we were visiting. The Moselle River valley was the big highlight for us--it is so scenic, and the way they plant those vineyards straight up the mountainsides is truly amazing. Our other favorites were: Canal cruise and visit with a family living on a houseboat in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, De Hoge Veluwe National Park, Reichsburg Castle, Luxembourg, and Heidelburg Castle.
There are only two "dress up" evenings on this cruise, the castle dinner near Cologne, and the chef's signature dinner on board, which was on the evening after we visited Baden-Baden. About two-thirds of the men in our group wore a sport coat for both dinners, and half of those wore a tie.
There is so much to see and do in Amsterdam that Tauck doesn't cover and so I highly recommend arriving at least 2-3 days early. We went to Keukenhof Gardens, Haarlem, and the Van Gogh museum before the tour started, and the Anne Frank House and Zaanse Schans when we went back to Amsterdam at the end before flying home. All of those were fabulous and well worth doing.
A special note for Claudia about Zaanse Schans--It is a historical Dutch village circa 1850. The experience is similar to visiting Colonial Williamsburg or Sturbridge Village in the US. We went with a private guide booked through Viator because we were pretty tired by the end of our trip and weren't up for finding our own way there on the train. It turned out to be a great decision because he was so knowledgeable about the area and gave us all sorts of information we probably wouldn't have gleaned on our own, and we traveled in his air-conditioned car instead of sweating it out on the train. We saw how they make wooden clogs, learned all about cheese-making, and climbed up in a working windmill. It was a great way to spend our last day of the trip, and we also did our last bit of shopping there instead of at the airport--good quality items, especially Delft and cheese.
I'm happy to answer questions about this cruise.
