Cologne 30 July

Our journey down the Rhine continued. We passed Dusseldorf & Mulheim before reaching Cologne slightly ahead of time.



Scenery along the Rhine



Scenery along the Rhine

We had a light breakfast in the Horizon Lounge today & lunch in the Reflections Restaurant before heading off on a walking tour of Cologne. Shuttle buses dropped us off near the Cologne Gothic Cathedral. Building began in 1445 & was completed in 1880. We had a look around some of the other areas before the rain came down.



Cologne Gothic Cathedral

We went into ‘Gaffel am Dom’ and had a taste of the local beer before walking back to the ship that had been moved closer to the centre of town.

At 4:00 we went up for afternoon tea then went back for a rest.

Amsterdam 29 July

A reasonably early start again today. A light breakfast at 6:30 or normal breakfast at 7:00. We were to be ready by 8:00 to board the coaches for a tour of the city of Amsterdam. Firstly we were shown around on the coach. Our tour guide Martin was excellent.

Following this we did a canal tour. It is an amazing city. Very different from Venice. We then boarded the coach and went to visit the secret churches before having a half hour of free time.

Secret church

We arrived back at the ship at 12:15 just in time for “All Aboard!” as departure was at 12:30.

Lunch was served at 12:30. Another lovely meal. After that we went up to the room for a rest. At 4:15 we went up for a cuppa & to listen to the cruise overview with Jana, the cruise Director. We then went & had a look at the pool area & gym before getting ready for the Port talk followed by the Captain’s cocktails & gala dinner. We were served a delicious 5 course a la Carte meal. The chef visited each table to see if we enjoyed our meal before we headed back to the cabin to view some of the passing scenery & enjoy the sunset over the Rhine.

Amsterdam 28 July

The last day of our Grand Europe coach tour. Today we said farewell to Julia our tour director and 3 of our travelling companions – Dolores, David & Jill, & our coach driver Miro. We had a laid back start today with breakfast scheduled for 8:30, bags out at 10:30 and departure from Brussels at 11:00. We detoured to Expo Park to view the giant Iron Crystal Atom magnified 165 billion times.

 

We stopped off for lunch just over the border in the Netherlands.

Scenery of Netherlands



More modern areas

Following our lunch break we continued on to Amsterdam where we boarded the Emerald Star for the next leg of our tour – Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise.
We were shown to our cabins & invited to partake of some light refreshment as lunch was still being served. We then went back to our room & unpacked for the next 15 days.
Dinner was scheduled for 6:30 as some of the guests were not arriving until 6:00pm.
Following dinner at 8:15 we were all invited to attend an orientation meeting.

A buffet dinner was served in the Reflections Restaurant at 6:30. This was followed at 8:15 by an information session by the Hotel Manager, the Captain & the Cruise Director in the Horizon lounge. Then it was off to our cabin where we were given the next day’s program, some special offers & a little Belgian chocolate.

Brussels 27 July

Today we had a trip to Brugge. We left the hotel about 9:00am for the short 1 1/2hour drive. It was raining most of the way. We met up with Yvonne our guide and began our walking tour of the old town often referred to as The Venice of the North because of all the canals.

 

We walked through the streets into the Market Square. It was raining on & off most of the time. The history was very interesting – merchants coming from far & wide by ship to trade their goods. At 12:00 we were left to explore on our own until 1:30 when we met up again and walked back to the bus for the trip back to the hotel.

We met up at 7:00 again to be taken to our venue for tonight’s dinner. The coach took us to downtown Brussels where we were to have our special dinner. We had vegetable soup with cheese & croutons, Beef colonnade served with fries (we were looking forward to mashed potato & vegetables) followed by a deliciously light waffle with cream. A bit of a disappointment really.

Brussels 26 July

We left the hotel about 9:30 and made the short trip to Luxembourg arriving about 10:20. As it was Sunday none of the shops were open & the place was very quiet. We did a short walking tour before going our separate ways. We had until 12:30 to investigate on our own.

Back on the bus & headed for Brussels, our home for the next 2 nights. We checked in to the hotel and prepared to go sightseeing. As it was raining again we decided to stay back at the hotel as our sightseeing included 45 minutes of own time. It was very chilly & David didn’t have a jacket & I didn’t want to get wet again.
We had a quiet time before going down to the lobby to meet the rest of the group. Dinner was not included tonight so we all went across to the Brussels Grill & had a lovely meal there. It was still raining when we headed back to the hotel at 9:00pm.

Trier 25 July

We left the hotel at 8:00 and stopped for our first break at 9:30. We continued on to Strasbourg arriving there about11:30. We did some sightseeing as we walked to Cathedral Square where we were nearly blown off our feet by the wind & then were let loose to do our own thing.

Cathedral Notre Dame - Strasbourg

Strasbourg

 

As it was so windy we went into a restaurant for some of the local fare. We tried their pizza made with cream instead of tomato paste. It was delicious. We also shared a Hamburger USA with chips. Needless to say no dinner necessary tonight.

We regrouped at the Cathedral at1:15 for our windy walk back to the bus. Then it was on to Trier to the hotel to freshen up before going on a foot tour of the town. We visited the Konstantin Basilica, a Ducal Palace and an ancient Roman gate. It was drizzling with rain, cold & windy so headed back to the hotel to get into the warmth.



Konstantin Basilica - Oldest church in Germany



Ducal Palace & gardens

 

Ancient Roman gate

Streets of Trier



Lucerne 24 July

It was a later start today. Breakfast was from 7:00 and we didn’t leave the hotel until 9:30. We began our sightseeing with a walking tour around the town & lake. We saw quite a lot in an hour & a half.

Lucerne by foot



Lucerne by foot

We ended up down by the lake where we boarded a motor launch to cross the lake & take in more sights.

From the boat

We were dropped off at the Alpine Rail station and boarded a train to take us to the top of Rigi, Queen of the Mountain. The scenes were beautiful but a light mist was coming in. We had lunch at the top and took some photos before going back down 3 stations on the train to the cable car.

From the train



At the top

 

We all bundled into one of the very large cars for the 10 minute trip back down to the bottom. The coach was there to pick us up & return us to the hotel about 3:30.

The rest of the afternoon was free time to spend as we wished and prepare for our dinner outing this evening. We headed down the road to the Stadtkeller Fondue House for dinner. It was raining so umbrellas were needed. The Radisson had some we could borrow as not everyone had one. We had a fabulous evening. Cheese fondue followed by mixed salad. The main course was veal strips in a mushroom sauce with potato rosti. Dessert was a cute little meringue & ice cream in the shape of the Swiss flag. The entertainment was an Oompah Band. WOW! They were a talented lot & encouraged audience participation. They even sang happy birthday to the four of us having birthdays.

Lucerne 23 July

Today was an early start. We had to have the bags out by 6:30 and get down to breakfast so we were ready to leave at 7:15am. It was pouring rain when we left but luckily it cleared after about an hour.

Steingarden

 

We had a tour of the Neuschwanstein Castle booked for 11:25 but we were early & arrived about 9:30 so had to hang around until our tour time. This was the castle of King Ludwig II of Bavaria who only lived in it for 172 days before he reached a mysterious death. Photos were not allowed inside the castle. It was very dark & rather gloomy. Some of the floors were incomplete and never been completed since.

We were delivered to the bottom of the mountain in a horse-drawn carriage.

 

David & I had a Bratwurst sausage & chips for lunch. We met back at the bus at 2:00pm & continued our journey to Lucerne. It was quite a long trip. We broke our journey at Arlberg Pass, the highest point in Austria. We had to go that way because the tunnel was closed. The mist had come in so it was a chilly 17C so the jumpers came out.

Arlberg Pass - Highest point in Austria

We continued on to Lucerne arriving at 7:45pm. We checked in to the hotel and then had to go & find something for dinner. We had a wander around the Blue Ball Jazz festival on the banks of the lake.

Munich 22 July

We left our beautiful accommodation at 8:00am for the trip to Salzburg.

We arrived in Salzburg about 10:30. It was another extremely hot day. We had a bit of a look around together at some of the Sound of Music sites and Mozart’s place of birth & how they make the Mozart chocolates before heading off on our own.

We headed down towards the river to have a look and take some photos from both sides of the bridge. We walked back into the town centre and had an ice cream and did a bit more exploring before heading to the Cathedral into the shade to wait for our meeting time. Salzburg was a very clean town.



Salzburg

We continued on our way to Munich. We arrived early so dropped off our bags before meeting up with our guide, Michael. He was certainly was an entertaining guide giving us much information about the beginnings of Munich, through the war and third Reich to now days.

Munich

 

The Coach dropped us off & we walked through the beginnings of a thunder storm to watch the Glockenspeil at 5:00. We dashed back to the bus avoiding much of the rain and went back to the hotel to get ready for our Bavarian dinner at the Gasthof Hinterbruehl Am See restaurant. We had a beautiful meal of Soup, roast duck & Bavarian cream/apple strudel.

Lake Bled 21 July

We left Venice at 7:45 to travel to Lake Bled. We arrived at the Carst Caves of Postjna about 10:00 and had an hour to kill before our train ride down into the caves. The train takes 20 minutes to take us into the large viewing areas. We had to climb a rather steep hill at first. This was pretty hard going as the asthma is still playing up. It was worth the effort though. The caves were beautiful. Much larger than the Jenolan Caves and a constant temperature of 10C so we had to wear warm coats. The tour through took about an hour with another train ride after that back to the surface. Unfortunately our photos didn't turn out as we only took the little camera as I wasn't sure whether I would go into them.

We had lunch before boarding the coach again for a short trip to Lake Bled, our overnight accommodation.

On the way to Lake Bled

 

We had a balcony room overlooking the lake giving us an amazing view.

The view from the balcony of our room

 

 About 4:30 the storm clouds rolled in & we had lots of thunder & lightning before light rain began falling about 5:30 then the sun came out again.

We met for dinner at 7:30 in a magnificent dining room overlooking the Lake. It looked truly magical as the sun went down.

The Lake at dusk

 

Venice 20 July

We left the hotel at 7:45 for our trip to the island of Venice. We boarded a private boat that whizzed over to the island.

 

We met up with the guide when we arrived and went firstly to the Doge’s Palace.



 

 It was a mighty interesting place and the information the guide gave us was really great. We got to walk across the Bridge of Sighs that the prisoners were walked across to the prison after their sentencing. We saw the cells that still have some of the writings of the prisoners, the most recent being from 1920.

After this some of the group went into the church to view the Byzantine architecture but as it was so hot the majority of us found a shady spot to sit. It was very hot, humid & smelly. Our next adventure took us on a gondola ride through the canals. We had a pretty grumpy Gondolier but one of the other groups had an accordion player & singer on board so that sounded lovely as we cruised along.


Canals of Venice

We were treated to a Murano Glass Blowing demonstration and then got to view some of the amazing pieces that were for sale. No photos allowed of these items though.

We were left to our own devices then & had until 3:15 to be back for the return boat trip. We walked up to the Rialto Bridge but were very disappointed as one side was under scaffolding & there was no decent vantage point to take a photo of the other side. We then went into the Correr Museum to have a look at some of the beautiful rooms & pieces.

Correr Museum

We arrived back at the hotel about 3:45 and had the rest of the day to relax before meeting for dinner at 7:30.