Monday 8 October 2012

Part one

Cruising

Back on Sunday after an 8 night cruise of the River Rhine from Basle to Amsterdam with Viking River Cruises, no they didn't advertise in Barbel Fisher before anybody asks ;o)

It was a trial run really, for our 40th anniversary next October. The Boss wants to see Moscow and St Petersburg. The same company do a 13 night trip along the Volga, Svir and the Niva Rivers .

The cruise on the Viking Sun was really very good.We were in the company of just 190 other river tourists, ranging I should say from their 50's to late 80's,about 160 of those were from the USA.Viking Sun
My aim was to sit with a different couple every breakfast, lunch and dinner, it worked really well,  we got to speak to a wide selection of couples. Some of the Americans were in groups, so an interloper had very little chance of joining them, they were in the minority though.
We met some very nice people, all prepared to talk about themselves, but not selling themselves, well apart from a pair of couples who were with each other all the time, both husbands retired US navy men, one a Captain of a warship and their service wives.
There were also a Welsh couple who seemed to think that North Wales was a different and separate country, and spent the entire trip running everything down about  the cruise and the really excellent staff..
It soon became evident that they had annoyed a good few people!
Funny lot these North Wales folk, I can remember trips up into the Snowdonia region and as soon as you walked in a village pub, there would be silence, followed quickly by Welsh language. This couple confirmed my long held thoughts about the regions people.
Anyway, as I said the trip was terrific, made even better, by an excellent, and he was English, Programme Director Tom Ash.
I'm not going to do a full review, but this one matches our experience if you're interested and don't like the idea, like us of the 3000 people ocean cruisers!.
Review
We will be going to Russia when we work out temperatures for late September early October.
Oh yes,I lost half a stone!!

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