If you are looking for a holiday that has everything done for you, pick a Viking River Cruise.

I had never been to Europe and got to experience 15 wonderful days exploring 900-year-old castles, eating my way across the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and Hungary, immersed in Mozart in Vienna and toured Nuremberg’s Second World War art tunnels.

Brigette Cannon and I took the Viking Grand European tour, which traces the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers between the windmilldotted waterways of Holland and stunning landscapes of Hungary, with picture-book villages and castles. With Viking you don’t need to research the cities or overthink the itinerary because they pick out the best for you.

River cruising should be called riverboat gliding. It is smaller, less stressful and much more relaxing than the megaships of the ocean. Picture travelling with your own housekeeper, personal chef and program director. Life on board is easy. There is a full bar and lounge with baby grand piano, alfresco and dining room seating, sun beds and mini golf on the top deck.

You take part as much or as little as you want in trivia nights, cooking classes, glass blowing demonstrations and dance lessons – or just sip your scotch and watch the world pass by. The tour is curated so you wake up to a new town or city; there are hosted shore tours that cater for the adventurous or the leisure traveller, depending on your interests and mobility.

The custom Scandinavian-designed Viking long boats are 135 metres long and have capacity for 190 guests with 95 staterooms twin share. The design is low level to fit under bridges and restricted in length to fit into the locks.

The food is restaurant quality. You order from a menu and receive premium wait service from morning to night. The dining options change every day, plus the chefs will adjust to cater. Eggs benny or breaky, salad with a lovely Chablis for lunch, fresh bread, entrée and mains. Although tempted by incredible desserts, we waited until the last few days to really blow out. There are coffee/tea and pastries available 24 hours and the bar in the lounge caters for cocktails and mixers, and has an extensive European and imported wine list.

Let’s talk age. Brigette and I were 10–15 years younger than the average traveller onboard. We loved being the life of every party and exploring new cities in the adventure group. We did a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cologne Cathedral in a group of eight, rode 25 kilometres on bikes across Vienna, visited a farm in the Gouda region and a day in the thermal baths of Budapest.

We got up and walked laps of the top deck at sunrise and then after our daily tour ducked off in the afternoons shopping or to find boutique bars in search of the best negroni in Europe.

If you have flirted with the idea of traveling Europe and not done it because the thought of being trapped on a boat with 3000 other people is not your idea of a holiday, change your thinking because river boat cruising with Viking are next level:

• It’s an inclusive experience and includes restaurant meals, matching wines, cocktails and tours and drinks package, and there are five stateroom options. The only thing that was additional was the laundry service.
• The Grand European Tour gives you access to centuries of rich history, the best organised tours, local cuisine, art, war sites and even German language lessons.
• 77 locks, four countries, 12 included tours and no airports. Unpacking once and sleeping in the same comfy bed every night for 15 days.
• Daily news is delivered to your room every day, including information and history of the place you are visiting, so you are always well informed, and you learn a lot.
• Included guided tours come with Bluetooth radios, meaning you have access to local knowledge and never miss a word. There is also an onboard lift and wheelchair access if you need it.
• The onboard concierge will source and book anything for you – a hair appointment, tickets to a Mozart performance, airport transfers.

TRAVEL HIGHLIGHTS

Amsterdam is more than just a place to smoke weed and buy gummy bears – it also has stunning 17th century canal houses and is inundated with pushbikes. For a city built on canals with a cannabis shop on every corner, bikes make sense. We explored the city of canals, which form about 90 islands connected by 1500 bridges, with Brigette’s good friend Dutch Alex, who set us on the right path, and we gained a few priceless travel tips – you buy coffee from a café and cannabis from a coffee shop. If you have limited time, popular sights, such as the Anne Frank Huis and Van Gogh Museum, should be booked at least six weeks in advance. Weather is unpredictable. Pack a jacket – even in summer, Currency is euro and Uber works just like at home.

Kinderdijk: a UNESCO site, known for its 19 remarkably preserved 18thcentury windmills. The windmill we toured is still privately owned and in working order today as it has for 700 years and once housed a family with 16 children.

Cologne: a Roman city with medieval brick walls dating back to BC and standing 2000 years later – and the cobbled roads are still used today. The Romans added raw porcelain to cement when making mortar, which is why large sections are in still great condition. Cologne Cathedral is the tallest twin-towered church in the world and is Germany’s most visited landmarks. It took more than 632 years to the original 1248 plans. The cathedral is made of 300,000 tons of stone and attracts six million visitors a year. It was constructed to house the bones of the three kings who visited Jesus and there is a gold carved box containing the bones of three people that dates to the period – so maybe it’s true. Repairs of war damage were completed in 1956, and the cathedral still has a permanent staff of 100, including 75 craftsmen, who work on the building every day.

Koblenz in Germany: a 2000-yearold town in the Middle Rhine on a 40 kilometre stretch of 28 castles.

Ehrenbreitstein Fortress is Europe’s largest and a Roman bolt hole from about 400-500AD. Marksburg Castle is the only hill castle on the Rhine that has never been destroyed or fallen into disrepair since it was built in 1100. It had been lived in for more than 920 years and is owned by one of the richest families in Germany, but is mainly used as a stopover rather than a full-time residence. This was one of the more entertaining tours – we were told that you can tell someone’s wealth in castle living if there is a toilet inside. Marksburg has an ensuite, which is essentially a long drop toilet off the main hall that adjoins a vaulted chapel just above the torture chamber.

Nuremberg: famous as the propaganda hub of the Nazi regime. The rally grounds are falling into disrepair. The name comes from “rocky mountain”. The imperial castle built in 1300 stands on a huge sandstone formation. Carved into the rock beneath the castle are 300,000 square feet of beer cellars and tunnels. You couldn’t drink the water, so the storage needed to be enough to hold barrels for the city’s 45,000 people. During the Second World War, they became air raid shelters and storage spaces for the crown jewels and priceless religious artefacts. To highlight how important this was in saving lives of the civilian population caught up in conflict, 92 percent of Dresden was destroyed and Nuremberg close behind at 91 percent because it was specifically targeted to break the morale of the Nazis. It is reported that 120,000 people hid in beer tunnels – but 6800 people died in Nuremberg compared with 250,000 in Dresden. It can be said that storing Nurenburg’s beer saved hundreds and thousands of lives plus precious artefacts from medieval times.

Budapest: the Hungarian capital. The Danube River has been the location of human settlement since the Paleolithic 2.58 million years ago. It was also the site of the Roman city of Aquincum and boasts 130 thermal spas, art nouveau architecture and quirky bars. And is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, particularly while standing on the Chain Bridge at “golden hour” when the sun sets.

UNEXPECTED LEARNINGS

Gouda cheese farm tour:

the Booij Kaasmakers family has been making gouda cheese for more than 300 years. Nobody protected the name gouda cheese to this region and “gouda” is now made all over the world, including Australia, and is one of the most popular and produced cheeses worldwide.

We visited a 1318 pub that was built before hops were added to beer called a brew house. Beers are automatically topped up and if you want to sit out the round out you need to place your coaster on top of your stein. The number of beers is tracked on your coaster and you pay at the end of your session.

Cologne: famous for eau de Cologne or “water from Cologne”, which has been produced here since 1709. Cologne has since become a generic term for aftershave – or as Territorians call it, “hunting dust” for men.

Birkenstock shoes were designed in 1774 by Johann Birkenstock from Neustadt. The company’s original purpose was to create shoes that support and contour the feet. The design today with a cork base is similar to the original created 250 years ago.

The churches and castles largely survived the war because it was agreed that buildings of significance should be spared. So in the Nazi era they built fake castle turrets and church spires on train tunnels to protect the rail system from being bombed. It meant the rail system largely stayed intact and created a safe place for the storage of ammunition and artefacts.

From the medieval period people grew grapes and drank wine because the water was polluted and made them sick. I guess if you have to cart water up a steep hill to your castle, swapping it out for wine makes sense in return for effort. The vines are planted vertically on the side of steep hills so they get even amounts of sun.

In 1900, a mechanic named Erwin Perzy was trying to improve the brightness of lightbulbs for a surgical lamp and he accidentally invented a snow globe. Perzy and his brother then opened the Original Vienna Snow Globe shop, which is still open today.

Vienna: composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, Gustav Mahler, Robert Stolz, and Johann Strauss, all performed in the city. Mozart spent his most creative and successful years in Vienna until he died at 35 years. He was five when he wrote his first composition.

Vienna is home to the Spanish Riding School, named after the Spanish Lipizzan breed of horses, which are used exclusively at the school. It’s also home to the world’s oldest and only baroque zoo, built in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace in 1752. It has 700 different species of animals and was recently voted the best (and most beautiful!) zoo in Europe.

Budapest: Shoes on the Danube Promenade holocaust memorial is dedicated to the 20,000 Jews who were murdered by fascist Hungarian militia belonging to the Arrow Cross Party along the riverbank in 1944-1945. There are 60 pairs of 1940-style iron shoes sitting at the edge of the water, abandoned. The shoes left behind humanise the Hungarian Jews who were killed – literally and figuratively. Shoes are a basic item we all own and at the time were worth more than a human life.

Budapest is packed with bathhouses replenished by mineral-rich hot springs. More than 1000 years before the Turks and Romans, the Celts bathed in the warm spring waters. We spent the day at Szechenyi Baths, which was built in 1913 and is the most visited with 18 pools, 10 saunas, several massage therapies, facial treatments and, of course, a beer thermal pool.

GETTING THERE

Book directly with Viking Cruises and build your own experience: vikingrivercruises.com.au

Ex-Darwin you can book the whole way to arrive in Amsterdam and exit Budapest with Singapore Airlines and your luggage goes right through.

We chose to use Rachel and the amazing team at HelloWorld Darwin, who will look after everything, including travel insurance, flights and end-to-end accommodation, as well as the cruise booking:

darwin@helloworld.com.au or

phone 08 8981 6777.