After our little “pre-cruise” pilgrimage, we are now in Amsterdam aboard the Emerald Sun – for our Evergreen Tours – “Splendours of Europe River Cruise”.
For the next 14 nights/15 days, we will be navigating the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers – and numerous canals and locks – as we travel from Amsterdam, Netherlands, through Germany and Austria and to our destination – Budapest, Hungary.
And we have company !
After years of planning, we are teaming up with our great friends Jo & Steve Miller, Gae & Greg Pearce and Therese & Bob Morgan for this part of our tour. More on that later.
First we had to get here from Maastricht and of course we could not come to the Netherlands without taking in some of the country’s iconic windmills !
Today was really just a driving day to get to the boat by mid afternoon. Though I was greatly tempted to detour to visit more famous military sites – Nijmegen, Arnhem – a sweep past Eindhoven was the “last of the past ” – for now 😉 – and our sights were set on Zaandam, just outside Amsterdam to the north, to tour the Zaanse Schans Historic Windmills. Over 10,000 windmills historically dotted the Dutch landscape and that number now has reduced to about 1,200. These here are some of the best remaining, and certainly in any number.
We had been served another huge breakfast at our hotel – which we were also able to utilise toward our lunch as well ! – and the guy who delivered it indicated that we could expect some fine weather today. Well that didn’t really happen ! As we drove toward Amsterdam, the clouds became darker and by the time we reached Zaandam, whilst it wasn’t raining it was only because the Arctic winds were too much for the rain. We wandered around the windmills a while until succumbing to the cold !
After leaving Zaandam, it was on to Amsterdam Centraal Station to return our car and make our way to the dock to find our cruise boat.
Our cruise information comes with some detailed notes for each day’s schedules and activities so I’ll include these as we go. We met up with “our crew” – we pretty much have 4 adjoining cabins – and had our own “Welcome Toast”. The rest of today is really just checking in and getting familiar with the place before a “Welcome and Safety Briefing” just before our buffet dinner this evening.
Then tomorrow we hit the road – well, river anyway – Let the cruise begin !
Today’s “Tour Trivia” – The average length of a river cruise ship is about the same as a football (soccer) pitch !