Cruises
Part 2 of a 3-part series
In our last post, we began our quick guide to European cruising rivers, starting with the Danube, Rhine, Seine, and the Volga and other Russian waterways — probably the best known of the top 12 cruising rivers in Europe.
In this post, we’ll take a look at four more rivers — well, actually five rivers and one canal — ranging from France to Portugal, Germany and the Czech Republic to Sweden.
The Rivers of Bordeaux: the Dordogne, Garonne, and Gironde
Bordeaux vineyard and chateau. Photo from Bordeaux Tourism.
You can get an intimate look at Bordeaux, perhaps the world’s premier red-wine-producing region, on this three-river cruise that begins in the city of Bordeaux itself. Bordeaux, situated along the Garonne River — which connects to the Bay of Biscay via the Gironde River along France’s western coast — is a treasure trove of architectural… Continue reading
First in a three-part series.
While all European rivers offer memorable scenery and an alluring array of port stops ranging from big cities to atmospheric villages, they also differ from each other in significant ways. Here’s a quick guide to help you decide which river cruise is right for you. (Keep in mind that itineraries may vary a bit among the different cruise lines.)
The Danube
The Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest, overlooks the Danube. Photo by Clark Norton
>Europe’s second longest river is second to none in romance, scenic beauty and high culture. Most one-week Danube itineraries run between Nuremberg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, with stops in Vienna, Austria, and a voyage through Austria’s scenic Wachau Valley along the way. The Wachau Valley features the town of Dȕrnstein – where Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned during the Crusades – and the nearby town of Melk, home to a… Continue reading
I want to thank the North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) for naming me for the second straight year as the Gold Award winner for Best Magazine Travel Series in their annual travel writing competition.
For both 2013 and 2014, three of my theme cruise columns written for Porthole Cruise Magazine took home the Gold.
This year’s series consisted of “Blue Sea, Red Sea,” about political cruises; “Bird is The Word,” about birding cruises; and “Now You Sea It,” about ghost-hunting cruises.
While the Porthole column came to an end earlier this year (with a piece on cat cruises), I had six years of fun writing about 37 different theme cruises covering all kinds of topics — some serious, some wacky, all entertaining.
At some point I’ll be putting out a collection of the columns in eBook form, and will let you know when it’s out.
According to… Continue reading
Uniworld’s European Jewels river cruise will feature the SS Maria Theresa. Photo from Uniworld.
I’ve often wondered about the derivation of the ship godmother tradition. A female celebrity of some sort says a few nice words about a new vessel and, in theory, breaks a bottle of Champagne across the bow to christen it.
According to one account I read, the tradition goes back thousands of years to when pagan priests would douse a new ship with blood as a kind of bon voyage send-off.
Somehow this morphed into celebrity godmothers and bottles of bubbly. Even royalty have gotten into the act. Queen Elizabeth II has served as godmother for a couple of Cunard’s “Queen” ocean liners, and Kate Middleton has appropriately doused a Princess Cruises vessel.
Actresses Make Great Godmothers
Actresses are commonly tapped. In retrospect, I would have gladly splurged on a balcony… Continue reading
An evening in medieval Dubrovnik. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
I love Croatia: walking the walls of medieval Dubrovnik, viewing the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s 3rd-century AD Palace in Split (the city is literally built into the ruins), wandering through the winding streets of the historic town of Trogir, being astonished to come upon a beautifully preserved Roman amphitheater in Pula, exploring larger cities like the double-Z combo of 3,000-year-old (!) Zadar and culturally rich Zagreb (the capital), and cruising among Croatia’s 1,000 islands, which sit like sparkling jewels in the Adriatic.
They’ve made Croatia one of the hottest destinations in all of Europe, and a favorite of baby boomers. (Both Super Bowl head coaches, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots and Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks, are of Croatian descent.)
But despite two trips there, there’s still much of Croatia I’ve yet to see, including the intriguing-sounding… Continue reading
The Aranui 3 sails the remote Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Photo courtesy of Aranui 3.
Some of the most interesting things you pick up at a huge travel-trade gathering like this past weekend’s New York Times Travel Show are what I would call tidbits — not big enough for an entire blog post, but nonetheless fun stuff.
Here are a few of my favorites from the show:
* You have to love a company — in this case Lion World Travel — whose eastern USA director of sales’ business card is, quote, “made by hand using the sanitized fibre from the dung of elephants, rhino and other wild herbivores of Africa.”
I didn’t get to meet the director of sales — Kathi Scott of Toronto — but her “100 % natural, 100% African, 110% recycled” paper business card intrigued me enough that I googled Lion World Travel and… Continue reading
This is one of the beautiful images you’ll find on StrideTravel.com. Photo by Dennis Cox.
“The Savvy Path to Breathtaking Travel, Without the Hassle”
“Less Planning, More Experiencing”
“A Journey of a Thousand Smiles Begins With a Single Click”
These are some of the taglines that express the essence of the new travel website, StrideTravel.com, where I worked for more than a year as Content Director. (My job is now in the capable hands of Content Coordinator Samantha Scott, who, together with co-founders Gavin Delany and Jared Alster, comprise a formidable team.)
In practical terms, Stride aspires to be — and in many ways already is — the best place on the Web to survey the wealth of multi-day, pre-planned trips that are now available from hundreds of travel suppliers around the world.
“Pre-planned trips” may encompass guided group or private tours as well as independent journeys… Continue reading
I resolve to spend more time…cruising. Photo by Clark Norton
According to a recent study, only eight percent of Americans successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions throughout the year.
That means that the perennial number one resolution, “lose weight,” is a perennial loser. I’m guessing it’s knocked out in the first round — or first week in this case — by leftover Christmas cookies and wintertime cravings for lasagna and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, sometimes at the same meal.
The perennial number two, “Getting organized,” is always my first resolution, and the first to be broken. For example, it took me 15 minutes of sorting through assorted papers to find the results of this study. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be organized by, well, 2016.
The number three resolution, at least for 2014 (according to the study by the University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology), was “spend… Continue reading
A Hurtigruten vessel makes its way through the Antarctic ice. Photo from Hurtigruten.
Since one of my favorite cruises ever was the Hurtigruten voyage along the coast of Norway, and Antarctica is currently number one on my bucket list, I thought I’d pass along this news from Hurtigruten about big price cuts in some of their upcoming Antarctica cruises, even though you may beat me to a cabin I’m eyeing myself.
You can currently save up to $7,820 per person on a 10- to 19-day voyage to the White Continent, with the new fares running as low as $6,081 per person, double occupancy. While that may not seem cheap compared to, say, a Caribbean cruise, a trip to Antarctica is typically a once-on-a-lifetime experience, and it just got thousands of dollars cheaper on a very experienced expedition-style cruise line:
* The 10-day “Land of the Penguins” voyage is available from… Continue reading
Hapag-Lloyd’s Europa 2 is one luxurious way to cruise Europe. Photo by Clark Norton
After posting my recent piece on repositioning cruises, I received this guest post entry from reader Suzanne Meades, offering some reasons why baby boomers might prefer taking a cruise ship to flying to and around Europe.
And for those boomers who have the time, I couldn’t agree more.
Both ocean and river cruising are big with boomers. A transatlantic cruise — fairly rare these days, except for repositioning cruises — evokes particular nostalgia for me, since a Spanish steamship took me across the Atlantic on my first trip to Europe in college. I even have a medal for winning the shipboard table tennis tournament, no easy task since the ship was rocking and rolling through the waves during my final match. At least, I think that medal is hiding around here somewhere…
As for seeing… Continue reading
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