Rhine & Shine
No other river in the world has a greater concentration of castles or castle ruins on its banks than the Rhine River, especially on a stretch between the German city of Koblenz and the town of Bingen. This is called the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For this castle-watching tour, we embarked on a seven-day, seven-night Rhine River cruise on AmaWaterways’
AmaStella, as only a river cruise ship offers a 360-degree view of the castles on both sides of the Rhine.
Forty castles in a row make for a fairy-tale cruise, especially in good weather. You will see green slopes, some of them vineyards, dotted by these castles, some rising 300 feet above sea level, or castle ruins (some date to the Holy Roman Empire). You will also pass by the legendary Lorelei statue, jutting out from the narrowest and deepest part of the river. Legend goes that Lorelei went to the top of the rock and threw herself into the river in despair over an unfaithful lover and was transformed into a siren, who lured fishermen to their end.
“It’s been said that an ocean cruise can take people ‘to’ a country, but a river cruise can take people ‘through the heart’ of the country,” says Brenda Kyllo, vice president for strategic alliances of AmaWaterways. Indeed, one simply cannot have this 360-degree view of all these castles during a land tour. A costly helicopter tour is your second best bet, but you’ll be missing out on the good food and wine on a steady table that a river cruise ship like AmaStella spoils you with.
“The Rhine River offers a perfect mix of historic European cities, amazing vineyards and castle-studded scenery but it is often the genuine care and warm service from our European crew that our guests most often write us about,” shares Brenda.
*** The ship sailed from Amsterdam, stopped in Cologne for a land tour before cruising through the Rhine Gorge. After rubbernecking in the ship’s deck as we cruised in the morning, we docked at the town of Rudesheim (home of Riesling), which is said to have the happiest street in the world (a 150-meter-long and narrow pedestrian street named Drosselgasse), because it is lined by beer taverns, wine bars and cafes (the town is famous for its Asbach brandy-laced Rudesheimer coffee.)
Rudesheim also has the Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Museum, which displays some 350 musical instruments, some dating back to the 19th century. There is one device that plays six violins in perfect harmony like an invisible chamber group. So with the music and the magic of Riesling, one can say every hour is happy hour in Rudesheim.
“On an AmaWaterways cruise, we would like our guests to experience all facets of the country in a very personalized way and we make this possible by offering a wide choice of daily shore excursions complemented by regional food and wine choices reflecting the countries visited,” Brenda points out.
After Rudesheim and a good night’s sleep (after Riesling and Rudesheimer coffee, which is topped by whipped cream and chocolate flakes, that was easy) we arrived in Ludwigshafen, an industrial city. From here, we took a land tour to Heidelberg, a romantic city dominated by the ruins of its sprawling castle and known for being the home of the oldest university in Germany. To Filipinos, Heidelberg is extraordinary because our national hero Jose Rizal once lived there. The ruins of the Renaissance-style castle are splendid even in their present form, and from there, one has a breathtaking view of the red roofs of the old town and the Neckar River. *** From Heidelberg, we cruised to Strasbourg, which is on the border of France and Germany. This was a favorite stop of many guests. With its single-spire (a rarity) Gothic cathedral with carvings as intricate as embroidery (described by Victor Hugo as a “gigantic and delicate marvel,” and by Goethe as a “sublimely towering, wide-spreading tree of God”), its canals and colorful houses, Strasbourg reminded me of both Amsterdam and Normandy, because of its waterways and its timber-framed façades. At the time we were there, there was a 12,000-year-old skeleton of a “mammoth” that was on display in a water-tight glass case on the square beside the cathedral (also famed for its astronomical clock that people line up to see).
Our next stop — despite the many cities and towns we visited we weren’t exhausted because our “hotel,” the cruise ship, that is, traveled with us and we only had to unpack and pack once — was Breisach in Germany. In Breisach, we were given three destinations to choose from: Freiburg, Riquewihr (in France) or the Black Forest. Most of us chose to go to Riquewihr — my personal favorite town during the seven-day cruise.
All of 1,500 people, it is a mini-Strasbourg, less the canals and the tourists. According to online sources, this town was the inspiration for Belle’s town in Beauty and the Beast.
Riquewihr is a real beauty, unchanged and unspoilt by war or modernity. In Riquewihr, you become a time traveler, journeying through a beautiful village with cobblestoned streets, drinking fountains and its very own moat bridge. Our cruise director Martina Valachova says Riquewihr “gives us a real feeling of how a village in the region would have looked 400 years ago.”
After seven days of discovering the heart of big cities and small romantic towns, we docked in Basel in Switzerland, which, like Amsterdam, is near a major airport (Zurich). The AmaStella’s captain Sjaak van der Weide, hotel manager Adile Wirth and Martina ensured that checkout would be flawless by color coding our pieces of luggage according to time of departure.
Then it was time to say goodbye, realizing that I was already missing my days of Rhine and roses even before I left the ship.
(For more information, call North Star Travel at 848-7802, 485-7272 local 214 or e-mail cruises@northstar-travel.com.ph.) (You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)