Tuesday 26 August 2025: Amsterdam – Roger

It was 4.30 am when we piled out of bed to shower, dress and be downstairs – well down the lift really – to check out of the Mondrian Hotel. It was 5.15am when the driver of the black  Audi A6 drove us to the airport. We headed in through the platinum boarding area. No queue, no fuss. Within 10 minutes we were seated in the dining room in the First Class lounge and ordering breakfast, surrounded by SAMs and SAWs (stand around men/women), There were nearly more of them than there were customers.

Breakfast over, we caught the remote train to the D and C gate area and still had a few hundred meters to walk as the airport is huge. We were quickly seated on the plane, in the same seats as we had on the way to Qatar. I thought I would try a John Wick movie having met Keanu Reeves at an airport in the 90s – he seemed like a nice bloke. Unless you’re into crash, bash and bad guys can’t shoot, I don’t recommend it.

Landing in Amsterdam 6 hours 40 minutes later we queued up at immigration just like everyone else. The officer gave Sylvia a polite telling off for not having enough spare pages in her passport, despite the fact she had three double pages free.

A Mercedes from the Waldorf Hotel picked us up for the 20-minute drive to the hotel, the driver complaining about traffic planners and greenies, who want everyone but them to ride a bicycle. The check in process at the hotel was very personable. We were seated in front of the desk and offered refreshments while passports were checked and paperwork completed.

After we were checked in and escorted to our room we took a leg-stretching stroll around some local streets, or should I say canals. At 5pm we headed to the aptly named Vault Bar on the lower level of the hotel. The building used to be a bank and the bar is in the old vault area, complete with original safe-deposit boxes. There we met Anne, who I had originally met with her friend Mila in 2016. Mila, was on holiday just now with her husband and 12 month-old baby. Long-time friends Greg and Susie, who we are joining us on the river boat, also joined us for a drink. They had done a self-guided bike tour of the city today.

Arriving back at our room there were some rather tasty yellow clogs on a tray in front of some flowers, which I didn’t taste.

 

Wednesday 27 August: Amsterdam, Boarding the Viking Lif – Sylvia

We had a lovely, leisurely breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam is one of my favourite hotels. The service is impeccable and it makes for a very peaceful retreat in the busy city.

After breakfast we headed off to do a little shopping. Those of you who read last year’s blogs on our Mediterranean cruise may remember that Roger quite likes Decathlon here in Europe. We jumped on the metro for an easy trip out to the Northern part of Amsterdam, arriving just before the store opened at 10am. 30 minutes or so later, we headed back to the hotel laden down with purchases. The metro is clean, efficient and easy to use.

We checked out of the hotel at midday and caught an Uber to the Amsterdam Passenger Terminal. We couldn’t find the entry to the port anywhere. The automatic sliding doors just wouldn’t open. Roger tried opening them manually and was met with a rather grumpy man who had absolutely no interest in helping us find our way. Eventually a nice man sitting at a cafe a bit down the road pointed us in the right direction and we boarded the Viking Lif. As is often the case, she was moored alongside her sister ship the Viking Einar.

The Viking Lif is one of many long boats in the Viking fleet. With a maximum passenger load of about 200 she is pretty compact but seems to work. The check in was quick and easy and we were shown to our suite at the aft of the boat. There are two of these suites on each of the long boats and for our trip Greg and Suzy have one, and we have the other. The suite is beautifully appointed and comfortable with a small balcony on two sides and plenty of storage space. We headed to the dining room, where we joined Greg and Susie for a simple buffet lunch.

As the boat didn’t depart Amsterdam until 11:45pm, Roger and I decided to do something completely different and embrace our inner children by visiting the Upside Down Amsterdam museum. This is an interactive place that encourages a bit of crazy silliness as you explore a number of different rooms. I think it is really designed for instagram users. We had a few giggles as we tried out some of the different exhibits. You will see from the photos below that I may have embraced my inner child a little more than Roger. (The ball pit was particularly fun, although I was a bit concerned about whether I’d be able to get out or not…)

We headed back to the boat passing again through Amsterdam Central, a bustling metro, train and bus station with numerous shops and an intriguing mirrored ceiling.

Back on board we joined Greg and Susie in their cabin for a drink while we watched the safety video before retiring for the evening.

This ship will be our home for the next 21 days as we make our way via the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers through to Bucharest.

 

Thursday 28 August: Kinderdjik – Roger

It was still dark when the boat pulled into the Kinderdjik jetty, where today we would explore the windmills. We headed down for breakfast with Greg and Susie, after which we tagged off the boat and headed down a small walkway to the area of the windmills, first looking across at the old pumping station, which was reflecting almost perfectly in the still water. We crossed a bridge, passing a brass monument to a baby and a cat that had floated away in a large storm that resulted in the creation of the windmills in this area. Both the child and the cat were recovered and survived, or so the story goes.

We wandered down a sealed path, stopping first at the windmill museum, which at this time of the day was closed. We crossed back over the bridge and watched as a boat came up the canal. The bridge lifted up in the middle, the boat went through and the bridge came back down again.

Wandering further up the sealed path we came across a different shaped windmill with a square box on top instead of the normal round dome. This is the second of the two museums among the nineteen windmills in this area. The rest are lived in as private homes. As we approached, some diggers came along but instead of having buckets on them they had baskets with clippers on them. They were used to clear the weed from the canals with the weeds then trucked away. Maintenance is something that’s taken very seriously around here; the lesson being learned from the 1400s when the dikes and sea walls were not well maintained and thousands of people and animals lost their lives in a major storm, which is where the story about the baby and the cat in the bassinet came from.

As we arrived at the windmill there was a lady fitting the last sail, which is basically a canvas cloth that runs down the length of the lattice-type woodwork. She carefully hooked the sail rope around the hooks with a flick but had to climb up to do the last few, saying that nowadays this was a bit against health and safety. Looks like health and safety have gotten hold of us all over the world. Having fixed the last sail she went round and let the brake off and the windmill started windmilling, the end of the large blades going round at quite considerable speed even though there was very little wind. This particular mill had had the blades modified with some stainless steel ends on them to pick up the wind a little more effectively.

Adjacent to the windmill was a little cook shop as one was not allowed to cook inside the windmill. Another building has now been turned into a shop. Moored alongside on the river were a couple of barge boats, which apparently families of six or seven people used to live on back on the day. There is very little room inside and an incredibly low ceiling.

The 19 windmills here were constructed around 1740 and designed to lift the water out of this area which is ~2m below sea level. Each windmill acts as a pump. A group of windmills, pumped the water up about a meter, then the next group another meter until it reached about 30cm above sea level when it reached the dike or seawall and was able to flow out sea. Engineering and ingenuity in constructing these things is quite incredible. Basically there is a shaft that comes off the windmill through to a wooden gear, which then turns a vertical shaft, at the bottom of which is another wooden gear, which then turns a turbine, which lifts the water and pumps it up. The top part of all these windmills rotates and there are concrete posts into the ground with chains on them where the person can wind the windmill round to the best direction to pick up the most wind. When the wind is too severe the sails were taken down and the mill shut down to prevent damage.

Further down the road, back towards where we started, the other windmill museum was open and we headed in, along with about 100 other people, most of them wearing earphones  and being led by a person with a lollipop and a microphone. Here we were able to climb right up into the windmill and have a really good look at how it all worked. This one was a more traditional shape, made of bricks and looking a bit like a giant vase sloping in as it went up with the windmill bit stuck on top. Inside there were numerous small rooms which, housed the family back in the day.

Leaving there, we headed to the pump house, which we had passed on the way in. This, when originally built in 1868, had steam-powered pumps with a large furnace to heat the steam and a lot of men with wheelbarrows and shovels keeping the temperature up. When the water level was very high the steam engine could not power the pump wheels on both sides so one side was shut down until the water was lower. In 1924 this was replaced by electric pumps. The building is now a museum with lots of interesting artefacts relating to the windmills, including a blacksmith shop with all the original tools. The pump house was decommissioned in 1996 and there is now a very large pumping station nearby that does well in one building what all these windmills used to do.

Back on board we headed to the lounge. As we sat drinking a coffee this 135m boat with about 190 passengers  pushed off sideways parallel to the jetty, which means it must have a very efficient propulsion system including bow thrusters and propellers on pods at the back.

We continued up river passing lots of industrial areas. One building had a super yacht parked outside. At 90m long she is apparently for sale for 130 million euros if anybody wants a new boat. We had a leisurely afternoon watching the scenery pass by. It was quite a contrast as along the riverbanks cows and other stock often hung out on the beach and then you would be moving through another large industrial area and there were often some nice houses or estates at the riverbank.

There has been a constant stream of barges and boats going both ways on the river. The cost of freighting goods this way is about 16% of what it costs by road. About 200 million tonnes of freight crosses the Dutch/German border this way annually.

It’s just after 9 pm as I write this and we are now on the Rhine river having crossed into Germany about two hours ago. We should be arriving in Cologne early morning.

 

Friday 29 August: Cologne – Sylvia

One of the perks of being in a suite is the option of having breakfast in our room. We decided to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised when our order arrived piping hot and right on time. I can see this may become our go-to option. Much more relaxing than standing in line waiting for an omelette order.

At about 8am we docked briefly at Monheim. As we are travelling up river and therefore a bit slower, Viking arranged to drop us off at Monheim, where we caught a coach for the 40-minute drive to the centre of Cologne. This gives us much more time to explore. The Viking Lif eventually arrived in Cologne shortly after midday.  Once we arrived in Cologne we avoided all the other passengers, who were joining their organised tours and headed off on our own to explore the city.

First stop was the Cologne cathedral. This impressive building is the tallest twin-spired church in the world and the third tallest church of any kind, Construction began in 1248 but was stopped in 1580, unfinished. Construction began again around 1814 but was not properly funded until the 1840’s. The building was not fully complete until 1880. Although hit by 14 bombs during WWII it remained standing, in a city that was almost completely flattened. It was later repaired and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1996.

Even though a mass was underway when we arrived we were allowed to enter the building to see the impressive architecture and stunning stained glass windows.

We then decided to climb the ~553 steps to the top of one of the towers, stopping at one point to admire the huge bells. The views from the top were pretty spectacular, albeit through wire netting. As we descended we were very happy to have arrived early as there were many more people starting to make the ascent.

We wandered through the old town, admiring the impressive city hall building, which is 61 meters tall and covered with 124 sculptures. It is Germany’s oldest city hall with construction starting sometime in the mid 1100’s.

Next stop was the Great Saint Martin Church, an impressive Romanesque Catholic Church that was erected between 1150 and 1250. We opted not to go inside. Nearby is an area of the old city known as the Fisherman’s Market. It no longer operates as a fish market but the colourful houses are recognisable as one of Cologne’s landmarks.  It makes for some pretty good photographs.

We headed to the Schokoladen (Chocolate) Museum, which stands in the old Customs office right on the river. This museum, which was opened at the end of October 1993, was the dream of Hans Imhoff and showcases the diversity of the 5000-year cultural history of chocolate and includes a working chocolate factory. We spent a good hour exploring the exhibits and sampling some chocolate. Having worked in the industry I was impressed by how comprehensive the exhibits were. There was a huge variety of both static and interactive displays that were very informative. At the end of the factory is a large chocolate fountain and a woman there was dipping wafers in the chocolate for us to enjoy.

After finishing our explorations of the museum we stopped in the cafe for lunch. The display of cakes and confections was pretty enticing but we opted first for a healthier, and very delicious salad. Afterwards Roger enjoyed a trio of chocolate ice-creams (milk, white and dark), while I indulged in a pretty spectacular brownie. Greg had the chocolate-coated strawberries.

After lunch Greg and Susie headed back to the boat to join their pre-arranged afternoon cycling tour of the city. Roger and I wandered back towards the cathedral and strolled across the Hohenzollern bridge to the other side of the river.  At over 400m long this bridge was built between 1907 and 1911. The only bridge not destroyed by allied bombing, it was blown up by the Germans at the end of WWII to make it difficult for the Allies to cross the Rhine. It was rebuilt for rail traffic in 1948. Today it is a six-track railway bridge with a path for pedestrians and cyclists, experiencing 1,500 train crossings per day. Since 2008 thousands of love locks have been added to the bridge. There are estimated to be between 50,000 and 200,000 locks added to the bridge with a combined weight of ~45 tonnes, but this is not deemed as a risk for the bridge so it is one of the few bridges in Europe where it is still legal for locks to be added.

On the other side of the river we took a lift up the Cologne Triangle building to the viewing platform at the top, which offers great views over the city.

We then wandered back across the bridge and along the riverside to where the Viking Lif was moored, enjoying a bit of quiet R&R for the rest of the afternoon. Tonight we will sail to Koblenz.