This gallery shows a selection of images taken on Viking’s Grand European Tour cruise of the waterways from Amsterdam to Budapest, along the Waal,
Rhine, Neckar, Main and Danube Rivers, travelling through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. A bit reminiscent of that old
1969 movie “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium”! (And Leonard Dove’s 1957 New Yorker cartoon, “But if it’s Tuesday, it has to be Siena”.)

It didn’t all go exactly to plan, unfortunately. While we were sailing through Germany, Mrs Merkel decided to pick a fight with the German lock-keepers,
and tried to fire thousands of them. They immediately went on strike, shutting down the waterways of Germany. Fortunately, Viking has many boats in its
European fleet, and was able to juggle these around in such a way that our journey could proceed to its conclusion, albeit with some detours. We had
an extra visit to Heidelberg, then we had to change boats, leaving the first boat, the Viking Var, at Wiesbaden, travelling by bus to Würzburg, and then
on to Regensburg, where we joined the second boat, the Viking Freya. From Regensburg, we backtracked to Nuremburg by bus, while the boat moved on to
Vilshofen, to where we returned by bus, thus enabling the boat to head at full speed for Austrian waterways before a second shutdown of the German locks.
Complicated! It must have been a nightmare for Viking, especially as their boats were all in the wrong places as a result of flooding earlier in the year,
between Passau and Budapest. But they managed to cope marvellously well, and our holiday was a great success.

Clicking on the thumbnails will bring up a large image and occasionally some snippets of information on the subject.

This is a large gallery - there was so much to see and enjoy; each place visited probably deserves its own gallery! But it's all in one, for simplicity.