{"id":1284,"date":"2014-07-09T12:29:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/river-cruise-the-beginning\/"},"modified":"2015-01-01T13:03:19","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T21:03:19","slug":"river-cruise-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/river-cruise-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"River cruise \u2014 the beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not long after my last post here, my husband and I left for a new-to-us adventure. We’ve cruised before, but we’d never done a river cruise. It’s really a different experience from ocean cruises! In fact, they’re so different that I really don’t know which I prefer. We chose a cruise that took us mainly to places we’d never been before, and it was thoroughly enjoyable, largely thanks to the people at Viking River Cruises.<\/p>\n

We left here on a Saturday morning, though not as early as we’d expected, since our first flight was delayed. Oops! We had a few minutes’ worry about whether we’d make our connection, but all went well. Four flights and 21 hours later, we were in Basel, Switzerland, where we boarded the Viking Helvetia to begin our trip. Of course, it was evening by then, so the ship was ready to leave.<\/p>\n

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The next morning we were to tour the Black Forest near Breisach, Germany, but apparently it is, indeed, possible to get seasick on a river; I spent the day in bed instead. Oh well. I did have visitors, though! Our cabin attendant checked on me regularly, and there were some others who visited via the window. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Luckily for me, I was much better the next day, so I was able to see Strasbourg, France, which is something I’ve wanted to do for some years. It’s a beautiful city! We had the usual city tour, of course, seeing all of the usual sights. Included were the treasured storks, as well as this gorgeous covered bridge.<\/p>\n

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The city has a canal system, so we also decided to take a canal cruise to see some of the city from a different perspective.<\/p>\n

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Water transportation meant that many of the buildings are situated right at the water’s edge. Lovely, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

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Naturally, we had to visit the magnificent cathedral, Notre Dame de Strasbourg, and I was most impressed by the clock inside. This is one of those that has moving figures at different times of the day, and it’s amazing to see it function!<\/p>\n

That’s enough for one day. \ud83d\ude09 I’ll add another installment soon!<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not long after my last post here, my husband and I left for a new-to-us adventure. We’ve cruised before, but we’d never done a river cruise. It’s really a different experience from ocean cruises! In fact, they’re so different that I really don’t know which I prefer. We chose a cruise that took us mainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[303],"tags":[224],"class_list":{"0":"post-1284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-family","8":"tag-travel","9":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/IMG_1121.jpg?fit=1024%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yzuO-kI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1283,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/10\/river-cruise-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":0},"title":"River cruise, part 2","author":"Sandy","date":"July 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"To continue with our travels, the next stop was in Heidelberg. Like Strasbourg, this is also a very beautiful city, and we began our visit with a trip to a hilltop fortress, which gave us this gorgeous view over the city.The fortress is mostly ruins these days, but it's very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Rhine-River-cruise-2014-036.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Rhine-River-cruise-2014-036.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Rhine-River-cruise-2014-036.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1281,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/river-cruise-the-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":1},"title":"River cruise \u2014 the end","author":"Sandy","date":"July 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last year my husband and I visited Amsterdam before taking a cruise to the Norwegian fjords. 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Our cabin was lovely; we'd been upgraded from a basic one to one with a French balcony, which was a little roomier and had the advantage of letting us open the sliding glass door and enjoy the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Gangplank-of-Viking-Prestige-Budapest.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Gangplank-of-Viking-Prestige-Budapest.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Gangplank-of-Viking-Prestige-Budapest.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2204,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2015\/07\/30\/cruising-the-rhone-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":3},"title":"Cruising the Rh\u00f4ne (part 1)","author":"Sandy","date":"July 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After leaving my sister and brother-in-law, my husband and I flew to the south of France to board a river ship, the Viking Buri. 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Not long after my last post, my husband and I took off for a couple of weeks on a Mediterranean cruise, beginning with several days in Barcelona and ending in Venice. The cruise was wonderful, as usual, and we enjoyed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Chouchou cuddling","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_0318-300x229.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2271,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2015\/08\/04\/cruising-the-rhone-part-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":5},"title":"Cruising the Rh\u00f4ne (part 5)","author":"Sandy","date":"August 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This was the last day of our actual cruise; the following day would be spent traveling home again. 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