Riverboat dreams: 14 days through 'the heart of Europe'

Have you ever dreamed of traveling across Europe by boat? Counting castles on the Rhine? Walking down winding cobblestone lanes lined with half-timbered houses? Watching picturesque villages flying past as you gaze out from the deck of your riverboat cabin? Or, maybe you'd like to explore windmills, sit at colorful sidewalk cafés, sample international cuisine, stroll past colorful shops or glide up a tramway to a fortress? If the answer to any of these questions is a resounding yes, then you might enjoy a riverboat cruise. My husband and I just returned from a 14-day riverboat cruise through the heart of Europe. The journey took us from Budapest to Amsterdam on the Danube, Main and Rhine rivers with new places to explore every day. Helpful guides led us on shore expeditions, but we were also free to wander wherever we wished, always returning at the end of the day to relax in comfort on our riverboat. Many people wonder what life on a riverboat is like. It's a great way to travel. We booked a cabin with a balcony deck and went to meals in the dining room. The service was first-rate. The dining menu featured new dishes each day. There was no room service on the riverboat, but they have a hot beverage machine and snacks available. There is a large indoor lounge to relax in with tall windows and a terrace deck. The topside deck is spacious with comfortable outdoor furniture, allowing you to sit and relax in the sun, or you can walk around to get exercise between ports. Our ship had 183 passengers. The cabins are on three decks. I recommend booking the highest deck so you are at eye level with the areas you are passing through. Also, when your boat travels through locks (canals that raise or lower boats between different stretches of water at different levels), you will sit above the canal instead of being down in the dark. Passage through each lock can take 20-30 minutes to traverse, and we passed through dozens of locks along the way. The ship docked at a different port each day, so the scenery changes constantly, and there is much to see and do. The ship's staff hosts entertainment in the afternoons and evenings. We began with a side trip to Prague, a mysterious city of a thousand spires. We stayed at the Palace Hotel in the heart of town, walking to the famous Astrological Clock in the Old Town Square and strolling across the Charles Bridge above the Danube. We attended a special folklore dinner at a family barn in the nearby countryside, where a local group of entertainers played, danced and sang traditional songs. Following our visit to Prague, we boarded a bus for an all-day journey through Slovakia to our waiting riverboat in Budapest, Hungary. The next day, we visited the gigantic, grand Szechenyi Thermal Baths. There were many indoor and outdoor pools, the perfect therapy for travel aches and pains! This place is a wonder to experience with its beginnings stretching back to Roman times. The next day, we headed upriver for our two-week tour. There were so many highlights! We attended a symphony concert in Vienna, Austria. The abbey at Melk, Austria, in the beautiful Wachau Valley was an impressive architectural wonder. The divinely painted ceilings and baroque architecture in the library and cathedral were stunning. The picturesque village of Passau in Bavaria Germany sits on the confluence of the three rivers: the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz. In the nearby village of Scharding, Austria, we strolled down the colorfully painted narrow streets to an old salt factory, where our group was put to work grinding salt using mortars and pestles, just like workers did more than 100 years ago! The highlight for my husband that day was the wooden beer boat we boarded for a trip along the river. Inside, picnic tables featured baskets with freshly baked giant pretzels and six kinds of beer. Each one tasted better than the last, and the longer we were on the boat the louder the conversation became. Regensburg, Germany, was a maze of beautiful winding streets, and the Easter Market in Nuremberg, Germany, was filled with trade booths selling homemade gingerbread cakes, delicious sausages in freshly baked buns and draft German beer. Easter Sunday found us at the resplendent little village of Bamberg, Germany, with church bells pealing a joyous chorus and happy families everywhere sitting at sidewalk cafes. Bamberg sells a famous "smoky beer." This concoction was born hundreds of years ago when a brewery caught fire and the smoke penetrated the malt. The impoverished brewer had no funds to replace the grain so he brewed up a beer with a distinct smoky flavor. Bamberg Rauchbier (smoky beer) has remained a beloved tradition since. Wurzburg, Germany, is a baroque and rococo wonderland. Be sure to visit the Wurzburg Residence, a stunning display of mind-boggling architecture. There are more than 65 churches in this town alone. This makes for a forest of spires and church bells ringing at every corner. The gardens at the Wurzburg Residence are breathtaking. Our next stop was at the little village of Wertheim, a great place to enjoy freshly baked pastries and cakes in the plaza. It was hard to pry ourselves away from the square and get back on the bus before the ship departed at 12:30 p.m. that day. For me, the greatest highlight of the trip was the 40-mile stretch of the Rhine that featured more than 28 castles. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is stunning with medieval castles at every turn, colorful and alluring towns along the river and vineyards carpeting the hillsides at impossible angles. As you sail past castle after castle, it seems as though each one is more amazing than the last. At Koblenz, we took a .5 mile tramway across the river and up the steep hillside to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress for a spectacular view of the Rhine. After touring the fortress, we sat in the plaza, looking out across the vast open landscape below. Then we sailed on to Cologne, a beautiful city. Its world-famous cathedral is a masterpiece of gothic architecture. I loved visiting the chocolate factory, too: I felt like I was on a Willy Wonka set. The six-story museum features exhibits about how cocoa beans are grown, and all about how chocolate has been revered through the centuries for its health-giving qualities. Be sure to walk the Hohenzollern Bridge, also known as the "Bridge of Love," for the hundreds of thousands of "love locks" people have attached to the guard rails. I enjoyed walking the city at night, reveling in the dramatic lighting of the bridge and cathedral. Residents talked and laughed as they strolled the city streets. Our final excursion was at Kinderdijk in The Netherlands, a village of 19 historic windmills built in the 1800s and preserved today as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Netherlands, facing a constant threat of inundation from the sea, once used windmills to pump water away from land. Today, pumping is done with electronic machinery, but in the early days, windmills powered the pumps. Families once lived inside the windmills, and we took a tour to get a sense of what a miller's life was like back then. Our voyage ended in Amsterdam. The next morning, we were whisked away to the airport for the journey home. Some people on the trip stayed to visit the city for several more days, but we were ready to return to our beloved home in Auburn. Rosanne S. McHenry is an award-winning local author who writes compelling stories about her life as a park ranger. Her two books: "Trip Tales: From Family Camping to Life as a Ranger," and "Tales from a Rogue Ranger" can be found on Amazon and other sites. Learn more about her by visiting www.triptalesbook.com. You can also watch Rosanne on Auburn Community Television for her show "On the Road with Ranger Rose," where she describes exciting trips to take all over the west. These entertaining episodes are also on YouTube. You can reach Rosanne directly by emailing her at RangerRose123@gmail.com.