We have wanted to do a European river cruise for some time, but the cost has always been a stumbling block. However when our travel agent, travelwithalan.com (TWA) sent us an offer to cruise the Rhine River for 8 days from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Holland on the Uniworld luxury boutique ship, River Empress, at a very good price for a last minute sailing, we jumped on it. When we received our paperwork, we were even more impressed that our fights would be on Lufthansa through Frankfurt, Germany. It's the way we typically fly to and from Europe and we like the direct Seattle to Frankfurt flight of around 9 hours.
The flight to Frankfurt departed on time at 2pm and was smooth and comfortable with the airplane being about 80% full. Once we arrived in Frankfurt (the following day around 8:30am), the plane was parked out on the tarmac and we were bused in to our terminal 1, A8 gate where it was a lengthy walk to the immigration passport check. From the immigration passport check it was another even longer walk out to our gate A68 in Terminal 1 where we had a 4 hour layover. We enjoyed that time chatting with and meeting other TWA tour members. About 45 minutes before our scheduled departure, there was a gate change and we had to walk some distance back to gate A52. At the appointed hour, we passed through check in (using the Lufthansa app on our phones made that easy), boarded another bus and were taken a long ways out on to the tarmac where we boarded our Lufthansa Canada Air regional jet for the 30 minute flight to Basel. If our little group of about 40 weren't on that flight, it would have been a pretty empty flight.
The snack for this flight was a yummy chocolate wafer cookie and they even served beer, wine, water, or soft drinks in the brief smooth 30 minute flight.
Upon arrival at the Basel airport which is actually located in France, we cleared immigration once again, collected our luggage, and were greeted by a Uniworld representative and shown to our bus which would take us to the ship that was docked only about 10 minutes away at the St. Johann pier.
As you'll see from the pictures, I'll post, these ships are long and skinny and not very tall so that they can get under the many bridges crossing the river (note the bridge in the background that we need to pass under tomorrow morning!). Check in went smooth and we were able to enjoy a very nice lasagna and salad lunch before heading off on our own on a little walking tour of Basel. We could see the downtown area from our ship, and we had enough time to do some sightseeing before being back on the ship by 6pm for the Captain's mandatory safety briefing.
We have a class 2 stateroom midship on Deck 3 on the port or left side with a nice sized picture window. The room is compact and elegantly furnished. The closets are quite ample although we wish we could have more drawer space. There are lots of 110v and 220v outlets. There's a flat screen TV and a compact bathroom with a small shower.
We donned warm clothing as it was about 38°f, scanned our boarding cards (RFID enabled) to exit the ship, and we were off on a very pleasant walk along the river. There were 3 bridges between the ship and downtown, and the Middle Bridge was originally built in 1225, but replaced in 1905. It looks like a Roman era bridge. We used an app called GPSMYCITY which allowed us to have a downloaded detail map (so we wouldn't need internet access away from the ship) plus suggested walks. The APP is free and I paid $4.95 to upgrade it so I could have a Basel map and suggested routes. It was terrific and easy to use.
We saw some impressive church steeples from a distance and decided to make those our goal for this brief 2-3 hour walk. The first church was Basel Münster. We couldn't go inside, but the architectural detail on the outside was impressive. There was a full face analog clock plus a sundial on the front of the building plus detailed sculptures and other ornamental detail. This was labeled as a 'must see' in our guide and it certainly met the criteria. From there, the other church that was labeled as a 'must see' was the Elizabethankirche. We found our way to that church and while it wasn't quite as impressive on the exterior, we were able to go inside and the stained glass over the altar was among the most detailed we have seen in our world travels. We were at the apex of our time availability, so we started our walk back to the ship through the center of town and found the town square (Marktplatz) with a very scenic Rathouse (town hall). Continuing our walk back to our ship, we found the Predigerkirche which was built in the 13th century and one of the first built of the Gothic style in the upper Rhine area.
Back at the ship, we scanned ourselves aboard, went the room, unpacked, and made our way to the Captain's safety talk. We learned from Captain Janos Varga that we can tour the wheelhouse while in the locks or docked. The important takeaways were that there are no life jackets in our stateroom (they are on the top outside deck), and most importantly, there are no lifeboats! We're not at sea! His talk was followed by an introduction of the Hotel Director, Ivan Oktavec, followed by the Cruise Director, Chad Briggs, who explained in summary what to expect on our cruise. Tomorrow at 10am he'll give an upcoming Port talk as we cruise down the Rhine. All shore excursions are included in the cruise price, and we signed up for the Alsatian wine villages tour for the next day. We'll be in France for that portion of this trip.
These presentations were followed by dinner at 7pm in the main dining room ( I skipped the entree as I had a large salad at 3pm). We shared a table with a couple from South Carolina and it was leisurely 2 hour dinner and our server was from the Cape Verde Islands. By the end of the dinner time, my biological clock was hitting the proverbial wall as I had been up over 24 hours and the time here is 9 hours ahead of Seattle time. Back at the room, sleep came instantly! And so ended the beginning of what looks to be a wonderful trip.
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