Riviera Rhine cruise and Glacier Express extension
We were invited by Riviera to join MS Geoffrey Chaucer on a Rhine river cruise starting in Cologne and finishing in Basel, with a three night extended land tour of Switzerland, including a Glacier Express train journey. We boarded the ship late one sunny morning in August after a very early flight out of Heathrow. With our rooms not ready until 3pm, and this being our only day in Cologne, we decided to head ashore and see what Cologne had to offer. We started at the focal point of the city, Cologne Cathedral, passing the Hohenzollern Rail bridge to get there. The bridge is a tourist attraction in itself and is one of the busiest rail bridges in Europe with over 1200 trains crossing it daily, as well as the pedestrians that walk along it for the views over the city, Built in the early 1900s, it’s steel arch structure is a fine example of this engineering design popular in this era.
Right opposite the bridge, behind the enormous railway station sits Cologne Cathedral, one of the most famous landmarks in Germany and one of the largest cathedrals in Europe. Sitting on a small mound at the east of the city the two gothic spires sit 157 metres high, making it the tallest twin-spired church in the world, can be seen for miles around. Construction started in 1248 to house the relics of the 3 wise men which had been bought to Cologne from Milan in 1164. However construction was halted in 1473 due to a lack of funds and it wasn’t completed until the 1880, still following the Medieval plans that had originally been drawn up. We walked all the way round the impressive cathedral which has an internal square footage of 8000 square metres, meaning it can hold up to 20,000 people. Inside the building is pleasantly simple, with its high domed ceiling and gorgeous stained glass windows along each side.
Leaving the cathedral we headed into the city centre to carry out another German tradition, a visit to a brauhaus, in our case at Peters Brewery at the Old Market Square. A couple of cold beers (don’t worry the servings are very small) and a German lunch later we were fuelled up and ready for more exploring. Making our way back to the ship we wandered through the city to our next destination, the Lindt Chocolate museum, handily located on our route back to the ship. A couple of hours later and full of chocolate (Rich may have over optimistically ordered on the ice cream) we headed back to the ship to unpack and prepare for our first evening on board.
Overnighting in Cologne the MS Geoffrey Chaucer slipped it’s ropes in the early hours of the next morning to start the roughly 70 mile journey south to the city of Koblenz. Enjoying a very relaxing morning sailing upstream with the gorgeous German countryside to keep us company we arrived into Koblenz at lunchtime. We decided that we rather than join one of the five walking tours laid on by Riviera and included in the fare, we would explore Koblenz on our own, especially given how easy it was to navigate on foot. Riviera generally only offer one excursion in each port of call (usually a walking tour) but there are enough guides for all guests to join in.
Leaving the docking place we headed down the Moselle River edge where the ship was docked, towards the confluence with the Rhine river which we had sailed down earlier. Along the way we passed the memorial to the Berlin Wall consisting of three large slabs of the wall set out in a poignant reminder of Germany’s recent history. Further down the river we reached German Corner where the two rivers meet and marked with the magnificent Denkmal von Kaiser Wilhelm I monument, part of which you can climb up to give amazing views of the confluence.
After climbing the monument we made our way to the cable car station just round the corner, and took a gondola over the river up to the ancient Fortress on the hill overlooking the city. Once we were up there we found a pretty beer garden for a refreshing pint and a view over Koblenz city and beyond. With a plethora of museums and galleries ensconced in the Fortress we gave most of them a miss as we didn’t want to run out of time to explore the city, but we couldn’t leave without a quick visit to the visiting Euro football exhibition.
Back down in the town we wandered further along the river to Koblenz Palace before heading in to the town stopping at various churches along the way and a must-do visit to Schangelbrunnen, the spitting boy statue who randomly showers passing pedestrians in a stream of water coming from his mouth! With tiredness and hunger getting the better of us we headed back to the ship just in time for the Captain’s welcome cocktail and dinner.
With another overnight stop, Rich managed to get out for a run in Koblenz before our 7am departure the next morning for what was billed as a highlight of the cruise, a morning of scenic sailing down the Rhine gorge. With perfect weather and blue skies, this headline performance did not disappoint as we passed pretty riverside villages, so many castles we lost count and lovely hillside vineyards.
Around lunchtime we pulled into the very pretty but busy town of Rudesheim. We were one of about 10 river ships docked in the town so it was quite busy in the town itself. We decided to skip the walking tour and take a couple of bikes from the ship to explore the surrounding area. With a couple of our friends being on another Riviera ship docked in Rudesheim that day we set off with them for a bike ride along the river and through the town, eventually returning to the beer garden in the park opposite where we were docked.
Another overnight stay meant another early morning run in a much quieter and very pretty Rudesheim before setting sail as we enjoyed our breakfast, sailing upstream to the town of Worms. Though this stretch of the river was a lot less scenic than the previous day it was still lovely to sit on the top deck and enjoy the warm weather and German countryside. Usually the MS Geoffrey Chaucer would dock in Speyer rather than Worms but as we were there on a bank holiday weekend and the town of Speyer had a Medieval music festival taking place on the parkland by the river we weren’t able to dock there, instead docking at the next available docking town of Worms about 30 miles north of Speyer.
However, Riviera had laid on coaches to take us all to the more picturesque town of Speyer. Once there we once again chose to do our own thing starting at the impressive cathedral before taking a walk through the town, down the pretty pedestrianised high street and some of the smaller quaint side streets. Unfortunately we didn’t have too long to explore and ran out of time to stop at one of the inviting looking cafes or beer gardens we spotted along the way. We imagine that docking here would be lovely as the town was only a short walk away from the river and would have been great to spend the evening in.
Back at the ship in Worms, once we were all aboard we set sail for our first overnight sailing up the river to Strasbourg in France and the first two locks of our voyage, one of which we passed through in the early hours of the morning and the second one as we enjoyed our morning coffee in bed. Docked up in Strasbourg we needed to take coaches from the rather industrial docking point to get into the city itself. The coaches dropped us at Petit France, a Medieval area of the town located on three small inlets on the River Ill south of the city centre. We decided that today we would join the hour and a half walking tour from Petit France to the city centre. Our guide started the tour in the medieval area explaining how the islands were a little less desirable in the 13th century than they seem now, as they were used to build a hospital for visiting sailors with disreputable diseases! Thankfully today the quarter seems a lot more desirable with quaint alleyways, medical buildings, rickety bridges and riverside cafes and restaurants, making it a tourist hotspot.
Leaving Petit France we headed into the City Centre with its impressive Gothic pink sandstone Cathedral which houses the most beautiful original stained glass windows dating from the 14th and 15th century that we’ve ever seen and a mechanical masterpiece, the Astronomical clock. We stayed to watch the clock chime before our guide left allowing us to have some free time to wander around. We headed straight to the river and the Palais Rohan, wandering back towards Gutenberg square, our meeting point, with enough time for a nice refreshing beer before walking back to the coach park for the transfer back to the ship.
Setting sail from Strasbourg in the middle of the night we headed down to the next destination Briesach, the gateway town for the Black Forest. Arriving there mid morning we had a little time to explore this quaint little town before lunch and our trip into the Black Forest. We decided to start out by climbing up to the St Stephan Munster, originally built in the 12th century, it is a landmark of the town sitting atop of a hill overlooking the river. From there we walked back down to the main high street running through the town and the bustling square before meandering back along the river path to the ship.
After lunch it was time for our tour into the Black Forest. The hour or so coach ride took us through many of the little towns and villages situated in this part of the Black Forest while our guide regaled us with stories and traditions from the area and his childhood, having grown up in the region. Arriving at our destination Titisee, we had a couple of hours free time to explore the very touristy shops along the beautiful lake, the largest in the Black Forest. Walking straight past the tourist shops we found a little beer garden on the shores of the lake at the very end of the road and spent an hour just enjoying a local beer and a piece of Black Forest Gateau (it had to be done) before meandering back to the coach for our ride back to the ship and departure for our final destination, Basel.
Arriving in Basel in the middle of the night we woke up in a ship sandwich with ships berthed either side of us (a inevitable disadvantage of river cruising). We had an early start today, a day which Peter, our cruise director, described as the highlight of the whole trip. Our coaches left at 8.30am for the hour long ride to the Swiss city Lucerne, where we had just over an hour to wander around. We started with the historical Chapel bridge, a 14th century covered wooden bridge and a tourist hot spot in the city. From here we walked down the river to the other covered, less touristy, bridge, then made our way through the pedestrianised shopping streets to find the other thing tourists come to see in Lucern, the Lion monument. This monument to the Swiss guardsmen killed in the 1792 French Revolution is a magnificent Lion carved into the natural rock setting above a pond almost in the heart of the city. Considering its popularity it was very quiet when we were there and we enjoyed some time just sitting looking at this magnificent carving before making our way back to our meeting point.
From Lucerne we had a slightly longer drive to the next stop, Wilderswil, where we would take the hour long 7.3km cogwheel train, up almost 1500metres to the Schynige Platte, for magnificent views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains, as well as the Thun and Brienz Lakes. Built in the late 1800s the engineering behind this scenic train ride is a feat in itself with the journey offering magnificent views as well as some steep gradients and hair-raising drops. At the top we had just over an hour to enjoy the incredible views from the Platte, with a conveniently located cafe to grab a drink and soak it in. Eventually we had to leave for the train ride back down and the long coach trip back to the ship, arriving with just enough time to freshen up before dinner and the unenviable task of packing as tomorrow morning we leave the ship.
But our holiday wasn’t over yet. While half of the passengers made their way home, the other half of us had booked a three day extension in Switzerland before flying home. Our departure the next morning was scheduled for 8am starting with a short coach ride to Basel station. We loaded our luggage onto the coach where it would remain, joining us again at our first hotel in the historic city of Chur. But rather than take to coach to Chur along with our luggage we got on a train for the two and a half hour journey to Chur, taking us passed Zurichsee, the huge lake with the city of Zurich at one end, then the smaller Obersee and Walensee lakes sitting in this wide valley with hillside villages either side and mountains rising up in the distance. Arriving at Chur we had a short walk to our hotel, Hotel Stern in the old part of the city, the oldest city in Switzerland, where parts of the old city date back to the 13th century. With a couple of hours until our rooms were ready we headed off to find a cafe for lunch, enjoying the gorgeous warm weather, eating an alfresco lunch in the old part of town.
By the time our hotel room was ready we were ready for a couple of hours of hours rest, having had hardly any time to breathe in the last couple of days. Refreshed and ready to go we headed back out later that afternoon to explore the oldest part of the city, just a short stroll from our hotel, meandering through the streets with the gorgeous historic buildings located around the cathedral leading down to the river, with water fountains featuring along the way. As usual, Helen spotted a hill up to the Haldenhüttli view point, which we had to climb for a view over the city before making our way back to the town centre to grab a bite to eat before returning to our hotel.
After a lazy morning, spent largely wandering from one coffee shop to the next, we headed back to Chur rail station for the thing we were most looking forward to in the entire trip, our five hour Glacier Express train ride from Chur to Zermatt, high in the Swiss Alps. We boarded the train just after lunchtime and settled in to enjoy the stunning views from the panoramic windows. It’s hard to explain how amazing this trip is, but suffice to say if ever you get the chance to do it then grab it with both hands. After a five minute stop halfway through the journey to enjoy the views, we continued on our way, approaching Zermatt just as the sun was starting to set - absolutely stunning!
By the time we arrived in Zermatt it was quite late into the evening so we headed directly to our lovely central hotel, Hotel Simi, checked in and went straight to bed. Waking up to a full free day we set off early for the cable car station at the other end of town and purchased a couple of tickets for the Matterhorn Glacier cable car, an hour long cable car ride up to the Klein Matterhorn peak, some 3,883 metres above sea level. For Rich this was a real challenge as he has a fear of cable cars and this had to be the steepest and scariest cable car ride we have ever taken. But after some cajoling and a brief stop halfway up to gather his wits we made it to the top of the mountain. Once up there we spent a couple of hours taking in the views, walking on a glacier and then walking inside a glacier, visiting the marvellous Ice Palace.
Back down on terra firma in the picture postcard ski resort, Zermatt, we walked back to the town centre along the fast flowing glacial river to celebrate making it up to the top of the mountain and back in one piece with a lovely refreshingly cold local beer. That evening we fulfilled another of Helen’s dreams with a delicious cheese fondue dinner at the fabulous Say Cheese.
With a late afternoon flight home from Geneva we had one final morning in Zermatt to soak in the scenery and enjoy a little hike in the picturesque area around the town. just after lunch we boarded our last train which would take us from Zermatt to Geneva airport, where we had to say goodbye to our fellow travellers and return home after what had been one of the most scenic journeys we’ve ever taken.
Thank you to Riviera Travel who hosted us on this Rhine river cruise with glacier Express extension and covered all of our travel costs. Riviera Travel had no editorial control over any of our content, either before, during our after our voyage and have not paid us to promote them or this post.
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