The Avid Cruiser

I checked into my hotel in Budapest, Hungary, and checked out a week later in Passau, Germany. Each evening, sometimes after I had fallen asleep, my hotel moved, from Budapest, to Bratislava, to Vienna, to Durnstein and Melk on the same day, to Linz and finally Passau. If you’re scratching your head, I’ll let you in on a secret: My hotel was a river cruiser.

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Immortalized by Johann Strauss in Blue Danube Waltz, the Danube winds from Germany’s Black Forest through Austria into the Balkans before dumping into the Black Sea.

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Want to sample a river cruise? Try a “Tulip & Windmill” cruise, which takes place during the spring in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Cruises typically begin and end in Amsterdam, overnighting in the Dutch city so that you have time to explore. Leaving Amsterdam, you will cruise past Holland’s annual floral splendor to visit two of Belgium’s most beautifully preserved medieval cities — Brussels and Brugge.

Or choose to go long. The completion of the Main-Danube Canal  in 1992 spawned grand cruise itineraries from Amsterdam to Budapest — and beyond.

An engineering marvel, the 106-mile Main-Danube Canal permits modern-day vessels to travel from the North Sea to the Black Sea, opening up more than 2,200 miles of river and exposing today’s travelers to life along the banks.

Europe has more navigable rivers than any other region in the world — and arguably more diverse cultures along its river banks than any place else.

Cruising the entire length of the Rhine and Danube rivers alone exposes travelers to ten countries in Eastern and Western Europe. Along the way are charming villages, storied capital cities, fairy tale castles, vineyards and more — all accessible from your floating hotel.

The most popular region for river cruising in Continental Europe — and a good choice for first-time river cruisers — is the Danube. Immortalized in Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz, the Danube winds from Germany’s Black Forest through Austria into the Balkans before dumping into the Black Sea.

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En Route To Prague, The Czech Republic (December 31, 2006) – Recapping events of our seven-day cruise from Budapest to Nuremberg, Cordula Deeken, hotel manager on Amadeus Waterways’ Amadagio, proudly proclaimed that we were close to breaking an all-time record: 279 bottles of wine consumed, only 23 bottles shy of a record set last summer. The audience applauded during the cocktail reception on the final night of our cruise. We were sure to surpass the standing record, because dinner and a New Year’s Eve ‘practice’ party still were ahead of us, and on Amadagio corks go popping with great frequency thanks to the ship’s policy of ‘wine and beer included’ with dinner. Continue Reading »