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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Make no mistake. River cruises and barge cruises are completely different beasts.

Designed specifically to transit locks along the way, modern river cruisers are long and narrow, as are the locks themselves, which measure more than 600 feet long but are only about 40 feet wide.

Barges typically are smaller and with fewer frills and amenities than river cruisers. Whereas river cruisers may carry more than 100 passengers, barges range from a few passengers to few dozen.

What River Cruises Offer

The opening of the Main-Danube Canal in 1992 not only spawned the birth of river cruising as we know it today but also spawned the birth of the contemporary river cruise vessel. There are more than 100 river cruisers operating on Europe’s rivers. A “building boom” since 2000 has seen the introduction of more than 50 new ships.

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The Rhine flows 820 miles through four countries — Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands — from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea.

Though some cruises operate between Basel, Switzerland, and Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, or Dusseldorf, Germany, the most popular section of the Rhine is between Mainz, at the confluence of the Main and Rhine, and Cologne.

Mainz is the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg and home to the Gutenberg Museum, which presents the history of printing. It’s not long before riverboats departing Mainz reach Rüdesheim, perhaps one of the Rhine’s most charming villages.

Rüdesheim is situated in the heart of the Rheingau wine-producing region, and the wine taverns along the narrow and lively pedestrian street known as Drosselgasse are packed with locals and tourists enjoying Reisling, sparking Sekts or local brandies.

Heading north from Rüdesheim, river cruisers pass half a dozen or more castles on both banks as well as the storied Lorelei, immortalized by poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote about a mysterious nymph who distracted sailors and lured their boats onto the rocks to their deaths.

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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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Rudesheim, Germany (October 14, 2006) – We are walking along Drosselgasse, the lively narrow pedestrian street in the best known wine village along the Rhine River. Saturday night, and the street is festive, with people dancing to oompah bands in beer gardens and wine cellars on either side. At one open-air beer garden, waitresses carry glasses of beer with froth sloshing. At a wine cellar nearby, patrons sip the Rheingau’s famous Rieslings, sparkling Sekts or locally distributed brandies. Continue Reading »