September Viking Cruise
 

My husband and I (mid 60's) are taking a Viking cruise from Amsterdam to Basel in September. I am an above knee amputee and while I walk well with a prosthesis, I am limited in distance walking. Does anyone have suggestions of things to do when we pull into docks of Kinderdijk, (Netherlands), Cologne, Koblenz & Rdersheim, Heidelberg & Speyer, Breisach (Germany) and Strasbourg (France). We end in Basel, but go directly to airport. Please try to keep my disability in mind. Can anyone suggest the best way for us to get from docks to cities sights--- taxi's, buses? Are these available upon arrival in the docks? We love to sight see, have lunch, shop, etc. Thanks for any help out there.

Anywhere there are a number of tourists, i.e., train stations, ship docks, etc., there will be taxis.

Also, if you are participating in one of Viking's city sightseeing tours, they should have buses to take you around to the various sights on the tour.

On my Gate 1 river cruise, many of the ports were right in the old town and you only had to walk a short distance to see the churches, restaurants, etc.

If you have specific questions, you should probably contact Viking by phone and ask them.

Thanks for your reply. If you have been to any of these cities I mentioned, which sights are more worthy of time spent there, since our time is limited on land?

I have been to a couple of the places you will visit, but I was not on a river cruise at the time.

I imagine that Viking will have city guides to give you a tour in the different towns where you will be stopping. They should hit the highlights.

So, not knowing what you will already have seen:

In Rudesheim, we just wandered around the Drosselgasse, took the Cable car to the Niederwald Monument, and walked along the river.

http://www.ruedesheim.de/en/see-discover/

In Heidelberg, your city guide should take you to the castle and the Alte Bruecke as well as give you a tour of the other popular sights. This website will give you an idea of the various churches, squares, etc., in Heidelberg. Maybe there is something you will want to see that is not included in your city tour.

http://www.heidelberg-marketing.com/...ce/sights.html

Those are the only towns where I have spent any time.

Strasbourg is beautiful!

Take a taxi or bus to the Cathedral. Tour. Walk around a bit, but be careful not to get caught up in all the vender stalls and linger too long there because you want to. . . .
Grab a taxi to the area called Petite France. Gorgeous. Great, easy walking. Have lunch there and stroll and shop. Several interesting old buildings you could also tour. Perfect.

There is a couple who call themselves the TravelingCanucks. Try (travelingcanucks.com) or maybe travelingcanucks, Strasbourg. Google their website and their photos of Petite France. They show some of the walkways over the river, so you get a good idea of the walking situation. The area is totally charming.

Thanks to both of you. Do you have any idea what the weather will be like at that time of the year?

We recently did this trip and some of the excursions do involve a lot of walking but they did try to offer alternatives at most destinations for those with walking difficulty and we had quite a few on our cruise. They tried to minimise the walking wherever possible.

In Colone the bus took us to the Cathedral and we walked round the city from there and the bus picked up again at the same place

Koblenz is nice and there is a cable car next to where you dock or a little train that does a tour round (a couple of places had those)


The Black Forest trip is mostly a bus tour with a couple of short stops

Kinderdijke is a nice stop to see the windmills, although they talk about a lot of walking really it's a short walk to the shop and a building where they do a talk about the history the. Another short walk to see the windmil inside, inside is very steep and a bit claustrophobic but interesting there is also a small cafe near the windmill that's open they did offer an alternative vist to a cheese factory but most said it was no worth the vist
Hope you enjoy your trip

Thank you for your comments. Very helpful.

I just got back from Viking's Amsterdam to Budapest Cruise; stopped in two of the sites listed--Kinderdike and Cologne. All stops offered walking tours; most of them started with a bus ride. At several stops they had separate "leisure tours" for those with mobility issues. When leisure tour wasn't offered, they made arrangements for a taxi.

The concierge service was excellent and went all out to make arrangements for alternative tours.

As stated above, the tour at Kinderdike was to view and hear history of windmills. it was a very small town and I don't recall any other activity there. In Cologne, the main attraction was the Cathedral. We were there on a day when the museums were closed (Sun? or Mon?) and just walked around the shopping area. For these two cities/villages, you should be fine with the included transportation options.

I don't know what the water levels will be on your tour, but on the Danube River, the water level was very low. As a result, when we docked in Budapest, the ramp to get on and off the boat was very steep. It might be tricky to negotiate.