Rhine River Cruise - leaving Amsterdam (and getting underway)

Woke up to iffy weather again. No big deal though since of course I packed my trusty Leinster Rugby jacket! Even though we were still in Amsterdam, this was considered Day 2 of our the actual 7-day cruise, so AmaWaterways had lined up a canal tour for all of the passengers. To determine what group you're in, you pick up a numbered, color-coded "ticket" at guest services, and when you get off the boat, you're directed to meet your tour guide. Right away, I could sense we'd drawn the short end of the stick with who we ended up with and it didn't get any better once we had our headsets on and she was in our ears. On the walk over to the canal cruise boat, she complained about the cost of real estate and gentrification in a very brusque manner. And once we got to the boat, she and our driver - who was a sweet, seemingly fun woman - clashed immediately. During the narration of the tour, they squabbled, our guide complained about the driver, and when talking about the upcoming Pride celebrations, kept referring to "the gays." It became so unpleasant, I eventually took my earbuds out and just watched the scenery go by.

Getting off the canal boat tour, we synced up with Brad and Danny and a couple of their friends again who were on a quest to locate a wine shop where they could pick up something drinkable. We joined them at the train station, at which point Google Maps directed us down a sidewalk exiting the station that narrowed until there was nowhere to get to without being flattened by an oncoming train - thank goodness for quick feet and even quicker thinking! Unfortunately, we learned that wine stores don't open until a bit later so we eventually split up. 

Alan and I headed back to the Jordaan neighborhood to see if the shop we'd visited on our food tour the first day was open. Google said it wouldn't be open until 1 p.m., but worst case scenario, we'd get to walk through one of my favorite parts of the city. Thankfully, the shop was open and the owner remembered us from a couple of days before and he walked us through a genever tasting. We'd first tasted genever in Belgium the autumn before (I really need to write that trip report, too!), and really enjoyed it, but this was an entirely different experience. In addition to tasting more genever, we also picked up some absinthe that isn't available for import to America due to tariffs, as well as a couple of bottles of wine to tide us over on the boat.

When we got back on the boat we went up to the top deck to drink some wine and relax from our morning and afternoon of sightseeing. 

As we pulled out of port in Amsterdam, it started to rain so we all rushed inside to hang out and continue getting to know our fellow passengers from the wine club. My understanding is that typically aboard these wine cruises, the featured winemaker will have a handful of people from the wine club or affiliated with the winery on board with him, but in this case, Mercury wine club members made up the majority of passengers so it was definitely more convivial and social for us than it would have been otherwise. We typically keep to ourselves when traveling, but on this trip we had a built in community already there. 

About an hour after we left port, we came upon our first set of locks. If you've never been through a lock system before, it takes a great deal of precision to maneuver the boats, and as you can see from the photos below, there isn't much room for error.

I don't have any pictures of it, but at one point as we sailed down the river, we passed a section where wild horses - and camels! (Yes, camels) were running free along the banks! It was quite an extraordinary sight to behold.

We sat with Brad and Danny at dinner that night who were lovely enough to share the wine with us they purchased earlier that afternoon, and it was a fantastic compliment to what was a very delicious meal. Definitely a good showing on the food so far.

After dinner, our small group went back upstairs to the top of the boat where we cracked open one of the bottles of genever we'd purchased earlier in the day and just share stories about our travels thus far and discuss what we were most looking forward to the rest of the trip. Being late June in Amsterdam, it stayed light out until nearly 10 p.m. so the night seemed to last forever. 

Back inside after dark, there was a DJ going in the lounge, and I may (or may not) have done a whole lot of dancing until jet lag once again caught up with me and it was time for bed. We had an exciting day ahead of us in Germany to look forward to.

Read More

Rhine River Cruise: Amsterdam

Our second morning in Amsterdam dawned warm and bright, perfect weather for tooling around this gorgeous city. Check-in for our river cruise wasn't until 3 p.m., so we essentially had all morning to wander around. At first we thought we might try to go back to the Rijksmuseum - having toured it in 2016 - but tickets for the day were all sold out. Despite this, we walked over to the Museum Quarter anyway, stopping in adorable shops along the way and checking out a lot of antique Delft pottery (I'm so upset I never stopped to purchase a Christmas ornament!). When we found ourself at the museum, we took a seat in the garden and did a lot of people watching. There was a really neat fountain that quite a number of people found themselves getting wet by. At this time of year, the garden was in full bloom and just really pretty.

Once our feet were rested, we continued wandering and found ourselves at Moco Museum. I'm not generally a fan of modern art, but they had a few interesting exhibitions going so we decided to stop in and check it out. Again, most of the art wasn't necessarily to my personal taste, but it was definitely interesting and thought provoking. For example, when we went there was an exhibit from Robbie Williams titled "Confessions of a Crowded Mind" that deals with depression and the fragility of the human mind.

After the museum, we walked around and did some shopping and stopped for lunch and a cocktail before heading back to the hotel to check out and make our way to the docks to board our cruise.

Upon boarding, we checked into our cabin and then wandered the boat to see if anyone we knew from the wine club had boarded. We ran into Brad and his husband Danny, at which time we learned that despite having shipped cases upon cases of wine months before, it never made it on board! Well, that certainly explained the really unfortunate rose and chardonnay that was being poured in the bar. 😒😕😞 It was obvious Brad was worried - after all, he's the featured winemaker on this journey, and for those on board who weren't part of the wine club already, it could be a really negative reflection on him. I felt soooooo bad for him, and frankly, a little bit bad for us too.

We'd sailed with AmaWaterways back in 2015 for a Christmas market cruise down the Danube, and I'd been a bit "meh" on the wine back then (despite having thoroughly enjoyed the experience otherwise). For the price the company charges, and this being a wine cruise, I would have hoped that when it became obvious they didn't have any of Brad's wine on board they would have gone out of their way to replace it with something that was at least drinkable, but this was straight up swill. Suffice it to say, this did not bode well for our expectations, and we went to bed that night wondering what else might prove to be underwhelming.

Read More