2025: Up the Rhine to Switzerland

It had been a long, dry summer and river levels everywhere were very low. Just a couple of weeks before our holiday we heard that cargo ships on the Rhine were having to travel just half-full, and that if the level dropped any further, our holiday cruise may have to be cancelled; luckily however there was then some rain in the Swiss mountains so the water levels rose slightly and we were able to join the ship as planned.

Travelling this time with Rivera Travel, we had decided to travel by Eurostar train instead of by air for a change. We had an easy, comfortable train ride to Brussels, where we boarded a coach that took us to join our ship at Cologne. The ship seemed excellent, dinner was superb, and we were very pleased with our comfortable well-appointed cabin.

The next day highlighted a major difference between this trip and all the other river cruises that we had been on. This cruise sailed in the early mornings and gave us an after-breakfast briefing about the destination that would be reached after lunch, whereas on all other cruises which we had taken the  travelling would be earlier, or even overnight, so that the destination was reached just after breakfast - with any necessary briefings having been held the night beforehand. We soon decided that we preferred the more usual approach, as it allowed for a full day at the destination and therefore a fuller, more relaxing experience.

The next day we arrived at Koblenz. We had visited this town on our previous Rhine cruise so, rather than join the main tour group, we boarded a cable-car which had not been in place when we visited before. This gave us superb views of the Rhine as we travelled across the river and up to the huge 1000-year-old fortress on top of the cliffs. The fortress itself was in very good condition, but we found the associated museum to be rather disappointing, with not many exhibits and no interesting themes to join them together.

The old fortress on the other side of the Rhine ...	... can be reached by a cable-car ride ...	... which gives superb views of the river ...	... and of the town of Koblenz.

That evening we had another superb dinner on board the ship before the evening's entertainment which was a session of German folk music. Oh dear, the folk group were simply awful; they attempted to compensate for their lack of singing ability by inserting comedy routines which were, in fact, even worse than the songs. Luckily their act was fairly short so we could then just relax in  the comfortable lounge and enjoy a few drinks from the bar while we chatted to our fellow-travellers.

The next morning, continuing the repeat of our 2018 trip, we cruised through the spectacular Rhine Gorge, past the Lorelei rocks and the many beautiful castles (click on this picture to see the many photos which I took on our previous trip)

Our next stop was the town of Rudesheim.. Again, we had visited this town in 2018 so, rather than join the main tour group to revisit the town's wonderful museum of mechanical musical instruments, we instead visited a local winery for a tasting session. The young North-German lad presenting the wines was excellent, with a great sense of humour, and we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon; we loved their sparkling wine and their Rose, but we didn't like the sweet Riesling (which was actually given to us by accident when somebody brought the wrong bottle).

Continuing up the Rhine we soon found ourselves on waters that were new to us. These upper reaches were much smaller than the busy waterway that we left behind, and were also extremely pretty. Blue-boarding our way up the shallow channels, we reached the small, ancient city of Speyer; here there is a huge museum of transport which has the most incredible collection of exhibits. Unfortunately, rather like the museum at Koblenz which we had visited earlier, the organisers seemed to have no idea of how to present the fabulous exhibits to make an interesting museum. Instead, hundreds of marvellous vintage and modern cars jostled randomly with weird one-offs as well as lorries, coaches, bikes, army trucks, and other vehicles - all beneath hordes of bi-planes, tri-planes, WW2 fighters, hang gliders, air balloons, and so on without any descriptions or stories attached to them. Intermixed with these were fairground rides, steam engines, water-craft, etc, with no logic to their arrangement or positioning. Outside were larger aircraft (including some RAF planes shot down during the war), water craft such as speedboats, landing craft, ferries, etc, mostly awaiting restoration. The only exception was that space vehicles (rockets, space-stations, recovery modules both American and Russian) were arranged in a separate hall.

Our next port of call was Strasbourg, capital of the Alsace region of France. As the weather was wonderful but rather too hot for energetic walking, we opted to view this beautiful city from the comfort of a mini-train which gave us an excellent commentary as we trundled through the narrow city streets. Later, back on board the ship, after another excellent dinner we were treated to an absolutely superb on-board performance by a visiting violinist.

After the next day's sightseeing on a coach around the Alsace wine-route, for once the ship travelled overnight so that by breakfast-time the next morning we were at Basel in Switzerland. Soon we boarded a coach to the very pretty town of Lucerne, where we learned a lot about the legend of William Tell before taking a stroll around the town.

The busy little town of Lucerne	The beautiful old bridge across the river	There are ancient paintings on every arch	Relaxing at the end of the bridge

After we had explored the pretty lakeside town of Lucerne, the coach took us onwards to the Bernese Oberland railway station. We were in the heart of the Alps now, with views of the Eiger and the Jungfrau mountains, and from here a rack-and-pinion scenic railway took us to the mountain-top for some incredible views of the valleys, lakes, forests, and mountain peaks.

Wonderful views from the coach on the way to the railway station	Debbie managed to make a couple of new friends at the railway station		The rack-and-pinion railway track up the mountain
Our train has arrived	Ready to board	One of the other trains enters a tunnel	See how steep the track is here
Details of the rack-and-pinion drive on the engine
The scenery became more and more fantastic as we climbed through the forests above Lucerne and then rose above them into the snowy Alpine peaks

Our short stay at  the top of the mountain was simply amazing. The weather was perfect, allowing us fabulous views of the scenery around us. It felt as if we were up there with the clouds - except that fortunately there were hardly any - as we wandered around the Alpine flower gardens and enjoyed the bright sunshine that reflected from the snowy peaks around us. We had time to drink a cup of coffee and buy a couple of souvenirs before catching the train back down to the foot of the mountain.

There were Alpenhorn players at the top of the mountain. Click here to PLAY VIDEO and listen to them.

Unfortunately our coach-trip back to the ship was rather longer than predicted, because a car had caught fire inside one of the tunnels and we had to take a long diversion before we could be back on board - just in time for a wonderful final dinner and a few farewell drinks at the bar. Our return home was again by train, by TGV to Paris and then by Eurostar to London. We arrived home tired but happy after great week's holiday, and really looking forward to another European river trip which we had scheduled for just 4 weeks later on the Elbe ...

All pictures on this site are © Allan Jones unless otherwise stated.