Our Days out in Cologne and Koblenz

On the second day of our river cruise we had a morning cruising down the Rhine, before the ship docked temporarily to allows us all to disembark and board coaches for the short 25 minute journey into the centre of Cologne. Strange you might think as the whole point of a river cruise is to be able to dock right in the centre of town – which our ship 3 hours after we had disembarked. The reason was because the last part of the journey involved going through many locks and Uniworld wanted us to have as much time in Cologne as possible.

The coach parked near the centre of Cologne and it was a 2 minute walk to the Dom – Colognes famous cathedral where we then met our tour guides and were taken on a tour around the beautiful cathedral. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and even knew about all the little pictures and stories which made up the stained glass windows. After the tour we had free time and as the ship was moored in Cologne until 10pm – we decided we needed to try some famous Cologne beer.

The sail out of Cologne was really beautiful and the barman in the bar made sure we were out on deck to see the Cathedral all lit up, and we were then on our way to Koblenz.

When we woke up we found we had docked in Koblenz and we had a choice of two trips, we chose to take the cable car  ride to Ehrenbreitstein Fortress – again our guide enroute was very knowledgeable and once we reached the top we had some fabulous views of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, we then walked around the Fortress which was never attacked during any war. After the tour we made our way back to the ship for lunch and then decided we were going to have a walk around the town of Koblenz. It does always amaze me in the European Cities how they still have the old high street favourites such as Woolworths and C&A but we don’t here in the UK.

After a lovely walk round Koblenz we were back on board ready to set sail to Rudesheim. We had been advised in the Cruise directors tour that evening to make sure we were on top deck or the main lounge from 8am the following morning as that would be when we would be passing the Castles of the Rhine, and every time we would sail pass one our ear pieces would come alive and tell us the history of the castle.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my river cruise experience, the only let down for me was the service at dinner – where I always thought it was customed to serve Ladies first (and speaking to other guests on board this was the case) just not with our waiters.

Next time I will tell you about my cruise on the Navigator of the Seas from which I have returned from and which is the complete opposite in cruising experience.

Have a good couple of weeks

Kerry

xx