Monday, March 30, 2009

Cross-European River Travel Is Easy And Enjoyable

By Samson Mandez

For most tourists the phrase "cruise vacation" conjures images of indolent time spent on deck chairs sipping tropical drinks while being transported across warm seas to the next sun-drenched tropical islet. But there is a different sort of cruise, which can bring an entirely new experience to the excitement of cruising: European river travel.

If you are an old hand cruise patron looking for a new experience, European river travel will present you with a way to stay on the water when the tropical cruise period has ended.

With European river travel, you will avoid the constant hassles of car gridlocks, changing accommodation every other day, and having to take lots of flights. And you will see wonderful places that are inaccessible to a seagoing cruise across Europe's coasts.

While many trips involving around European river travel center on the visit of urban areas, there are valid alternatives if you prefer to visit more laidback areas, or even unspoiled nature in natural parks and sparsely settled areas. You can even combine urban and rural sights.

There are lots of options for European river travel, both for the busy traveler who just needs a relaxing add-on to an existing trip, and to the leisured voyager who can take off weeks at a time to cruise at a slow pace. While self-catering options with small boats are available most river cruise ships on Europe's rivers are outright floating hotels.

One of the most fantastic European river travel that you can take goes all the way from Amsterdam, in Holland, to the Black Sea, in Romania. On such a trip, you will travel on three of the continent's mayor waterways, the Rhine, the Main and the Danube, as well as on connecting canals.

You'll visit Vienna, the origin of the waltz, and the thirteenth-century cathedral at Cologne. You'll visit the overwhelming Danube Gorge and the Stone Bridge at Regensburg, which has been bearing traffic safely over the Danube for more than a thousand years.

The vessels used for European river travel are far smaller than their ocean-cruising counterparts, usually having space for less than two hundred travelers. So you will be treated with a far more bespoke service, and you will see sights that you couldn't glimpse at from the decks of the ocean ship giants.

There are a wealth of things to see and do while enjoying European river travel, and you will finish the trip surprised by the experience. In fact, you may even decide to explore some other part of Europe by boat next year!

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