Wine & dine on the RHINE

First-time cruiser BEL MOONEY throws her scepticism overboard and casts off for . . .

Those advertisements for Viking Cruises are annoying — that smart, whiteclad, silver-haired couple on deck, gazing up at romantic fairytale castles, waving elegant flutes of champagne and never squabbling.

It doesn’t look like me somehow — and certainly not my motorcycleloving husband, who’d be more at home at a biker rally.

even so, I love rivers and there comes a time in life when you have to go with the middle-aged flow — and so here we are boarding the ‘longboat’ (as these river cruisers are called) in Amsterdam, not knowing quite what to expect. But as soon as we are shown to our stateroom and read the first daily bulletin I get the picture.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be looked after. Few decisions to be made, no worries about transport, courteous, welltrained staff to answer every need.

At each new daily mooring, there is an included tour and one or two optional ones (you pay extra), but there’s nothing to stop you staying on the boat, browsing the excellent small library, eating good food and letting the Rhine send you to sleep.

I like going to the huge dining room and just joining a table. We bond with a young American couple called John and Beth. one night, pretty Beth and I confide in each other, helped by a few Rieslinginduced tears and hugs.

After-dinner drinks in the lounge, with music playing, can forge instant friendships. on one occasion, we plonk ourselves on a table with some lovely Brits.

‘You look just like that lady from the Daily Mail,’ one of them says. Post- cruise they have become friends. There are eight people travelling alone on our ship, the