Overview of Our Viking Rhine River Cruise 2026

We left our home in Southern California on Saturday, September 19 for a 14-day vacation in Western Europe, with the main objective being a river cruise on the Rhine aboard a Viking Longship. The cruise was planned for seven days, with the pre-cruise and post-cruise days intended for personal, self-guided sightseeing in the region—including a trip to Brussels to visit my niece who works in the city. The total time we spent in Europe was very enjoyable and enlightening.

We were picked up at our home in Orange County, California at 9:40 AM PDT by a Lyft rideshare for an estimated 45-minute ride to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The freeway traffic was good for a Saturday morning, and we arrived at the airport within the 45-minute timeframe. Checking in and airport security (TSA) went fairly smoothly, even though I had my usual stressful moment trying to make sure I collected everything I put on the conveyor belt when the scan was finished. There were no hiccups here, so we were cleared to travel in a very short time. We decided to get breakfast before doing anything else; once that was completed, we proceeded to locate our departure gate, Gate 206. What we did not anticipate was that a very long walk from the food court area was in our future. This was in Terminal B, the international terminal also known as the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), named in honor of Los Angeles' 38th mayor who served from 1973 to 1993. I was not familiar with this terminal, even though I have traveled through LAX dozens of times.

Our flights for this journey were KLM flight KL0602 from LAX to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS), with a connecting flight, KL1945, from AMS to EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg (BSL) in Switzerland. The flight from LAX lifted off at 1:58 PM PDT, Saturday, September 19th and touched down in Amsterdam at 11:25 PM PDT or 8:25 AM Central European Summer Time (CEST), Sunday, September 20th (approximately 9 hours and 27 minutes of flight time).

On arrival at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, I was a bit irritated with their European Entry/Exit System (EES). There was a long line of passengers waiting to be examined by immigration personnel. When we confirmed that we were traveling with US passports, we were directed to one of the self-service kiosks, where you scan your passport and take a photo. We did that, but received a code that meant we had to join the long line we could have joined in the first place. We had enough time to make our connection, so there was no anxiety. Fortunately, at some point an official opened a section of the line, and we were able to go directly to the immigration officer. He looked at our passports, wished us an enjoyable stay in Amsterdam, and cleared us. Our luggage was checked through to Basel, so there was no Customs inspection at Schiphol and no need to collect luggage there. Our next objective was to get to Basel.

The call to board our connecting flight at Gate B22 was made at 12:05 PM CEST, but there was no plane at the gate! We boarded a bus that drove us to the location of the aircraft. Once onboard and with the doors closed, the captain announced that there was some type of issue with the airspace we needed to fly through, resulting in a delay of an hour or more before we could take off. A very short time later, he made another announcement stating that we were cleared to fly through the airspace. We were never told what the problem was. We lifted off from AMS at 1:14 PM CEST and touched down at BSL at 2:07 PM CEST—a total flight time of 53 minutes in the air.

The process through BSL was quick and painless. Once we walked to the baggage collection area and secured our luggage, we simply left the airport, since we had nothing to declare. One tidbit about that airport is that the facility straddles France and Switzerland. You have to exit through the correct door if you want to end up in the country you intend to visit. We walked out to the curb in Switzerland and took a cab to our hotel—DASBREITEHOTEL am Rhein. The cost was €50.

I will make a separate post covering our activities once we have concluded all of our travel activities.

***Here is a map of the cruise we originally booked—northbound from Basel to Amsterdam, but that route got substantially changed due to historic low water levels on the Rhine this year.***

This trip, the Viking "Rhine Getaway—Basel to Amsterdam," was booked and paid for in early March of this year. The trip we actually took on the Viking Rolf was not the one we originally booked. Due to historic low water levels on the Rhine River, some portions of the river were not navigable. As a result, the original route had to be modified, requiring some ports to be dropped and others added, while overland coaches were used to bypass sections where the water was too low in order to swap ships. Viking informed us about this change seven days before the start date of the cruise. We expected some changes, since for weeks the news media had been reporting on the historic low water levels on the Rhine. Viking gave us a 60% future cruise credit for this unfortunate situation.

The coaches took us from Kehl to Luxembourg, where we stopped for a few hours of free time to explore the city. We also bought lunch there—Viking reimbursed us €50—and then continued to Brussels, where we boarded the new ship, Sigyn, on Friday, September 25. It was laid out exactly like the previous ship, so we had the same room numbers. Furthermore, our luggage, which had been sent ahead of us, was quickly brought to our room. The only sad part was missing the crew from the Rolf, as we had bonded with them and they remained with that ship. However, the crew on Sigyn was just as good as the one on Rolf. To mention the crew briefly, they were exceptional and the best I have ever encountered on other cruises, in hotels, in restaurants, or at any customer service establishment—they were simply the best.

Our original plan would have taken us to the following ports:

Basel, Switzerland - Embarkation
Breisach, Germany
Kehl/Strasbourg, Germany/France
Speyer, Germany
Rüdesheim, Germany
Koblenz, Germany
Cologne, Germany
Kinderdijk, The Netherlands
Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Disembarkation

The following destinations/ports were removed:

September 25
- Speyer, Germany
- Rüdesheim, Germany
September 26
- Koblenz, Germany
September 27
- Cologne, Germany
September 29
- Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The new route, including all modifications, was:

Tuesday, September 22: Port of Dreiländereck, Basel, Switzerland
- Embarkation (where France, Switzerland, and Germany meet)
- Guided tour of Basel following embarkation
Wednesday, September 23: Breisach, Germany
- Coach and guided tour to the Black Forest in Germany
- Later hired a cab to Colmar, France
Thursday, September 24: Port of Kehl, Germany
- Coach to Strasbourg, France for the "Panoramic Strasbourg by Land and Water" tour
- Self-guided exploration in Strasbourg, followed by shuttle return to the ship
Friday, September 25: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg & Belgium
- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (by coach)
- Brussels, Belgium (by coach)
- Antwerp, Belgium (by ship, with an overnight stay)
Saturday, September 26: Brussels & Antwerp, Belgium
- Coach back to Brussels for a guided and self-guided walking tour
- Self-guided walking tour of Antwerp in the afternoon upon returning to the ship
Sunday, September 27: Antwerp, Belgium
- Guided tour of Antwerp
- Continued self-guided exploration of Antwerp
Monday, September 28: Gorinchem & Kinderdijk, The Netherlands
- Visits to Gorinchem and Kinderdijk
Tuesday, September 29: Huizen & Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Disembarkation at Huizen
- Left luggage with the ship and walked around the city
- Retrieved luggage from the ship, and took an Uber to citizenM Hotel at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam

The interactive map below shows the route we traveled by coach from Kehl to Brussels, with a stop in Luxembough City to swap ships.

At the end of the cruise, we spent four days in Amsterdam, including making a day trip to Brussels to visit with my niece. We left Amsterdam on October 3 to return to California. In the evening of the day before we were leaving I got a text message from KLM telling me that our direct flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles for tomorrow was cancelled. They eventually re-booked us on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles with a stop in Chicago. Reluctantly I took it. I will make a separate post about those activities.

Despite the changes, upsets and surprises, I consider the trip to have been an overwhelming success!

**F. Hoffmann-La Roche Campus**

Corporate headquarters and research campus of the healthcare company, located along the Rhine river in Basel, Switzerland. The tower to the right, at 205 meters, is currently reported to be the tallest building in Switzerland. These were the first significant structures we saw when we found our way from the hotel to the river using a shortcut. I expected to see some Gothic architecture, but that did not happen until a later.

***Sunday, September 20, 2026 - Basel, Switzerland:*** *The structure on the left with the two spires is the Basel Minster. The other buildings are part of the Old Town. The bridge is the Wettstein Bridge.*

The lights of the Old City came up just before the final setting of the sun. We continued exploring a little more in the dark. Next day we spent all of our time in the Old City.

***Tuesday, September 22, 2026 - Basel, Switzerland:*** Embarkation day at the port of Dreiländereck; the place where three nations meet.

***Wednesday, September 23, 2026 - Colmar, France.:*** *We rode this train in Colmar. It took us on a 45-minute tour of the Old Town.*

***Friday, September 25, 2026 - Luxembourg:*** This photo was taken in Place Guillaume II, the main public square in the historic Ville Haute district of Luxembourg City. The Spires in the background belong to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame. The classical 19th-century building framing the square is the Luxembourg City Hall.

***Saturday, September 26, 2026: Brussels, Belgium: The*** Atomium at the gateway to Brussels. This was built for the Brussels World Fair of 1958 (Expo 58). Construction started in 1956 and ended just weeks before the World Fair in 1958. It stands 335 feel tall and has nine spheres, each measuring 18 feet in diameter.. We returned to this location several days after this photo and was able to climb around inside some of the spheres. It represents an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

***Saturday, September 26, 2026 - Brussels, Belgium: The Grand-Place:***

We were strolling the streets of Brussels when a parade suddenly appeared. I captured as much as I could. If you look to the bottom left of the frame you would see an unofficial band conductor.

***Sunday, September 27, 2026 - Antwerp, Belgium:*** Cathedral of Our Lady in *Handschoenmarkt (Glove Market)*, Antwerp, Belgium. The statute of Peter Paul Rubens on the right hand side of the photo. It is also the location where Rubens’ masterpieces are stored and displayed. It took 170 years to build this cathedral (1352 to 1521) but was never really completed according to its original blueprint. It is one of the very few Gothic churches with a seven-aisled interior. Among its famous admirers were Napoleon Bonaparte and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. We visited a number of the old cathedrals during the trip, but this one took us more than two hours to go through.

***Saturday, September 27, 2026 - Antwerp, Belgium:‍ ‍***A Dog of Flanders. A sad story from a 1872 novel written by Marie Louise de la Ramée under the pseudonym Ouida. Although it was a work of fiction it was highlighting the true condition of the poor in a real city of Hoboken. The way the story came to us by our guide, is that in modern times, a Japanese tourist visited Antwerp and was very anxious to see the “boy and the dog”. Officials at the time did not know what this tourist was looking for, and even suggested another boy that is famous in Belgium—Manneken-Pis, but that was not what the tourist was looking for. Eventually it was explained about this boy, Nello and a dog, Patrasche, who even though he was very poor, had dreams of being an artist. He wanted to see Peter Paul Rubens’ triptychs masterpieces (The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross) in the Cathedral of Our Lady . These masterpieces were covered with a blind and a fee was needed to see them. Nello had no money and could not see them. One Christmas Eve the Nello and Patrasche got into the cathedral and he saw the masterpieces. He and his dog then hugged for warmth and both froze to death. When they were discovered they were both buried in the same grave. This novel was very popular in Japan and was read by children in schools, hence the reason the tourist was trying to find the location. Since that time the city erected the statute, sculpted by Baptist Vermeulen, shown in this photo in Handschoenmarkt (Glove Market). It is directly in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady and it has become a very popular tourist destination.

***Saturday, September 26, 2026 - Antwerp, Belgium:*** *Het Steen a medieval castle overlooking the Scheldt river. Origins 9th to 12th century. Today it is a museum for visitors. In the past it was a royal castle, a feared prison and a maritime museum.*

***Monday, September 28, 2026 - Gorinchem, The Netherlands:*** The City wall—the remaining part of the 13th-century fortification of the town.

***Monday, September 28, 2026 - Kinderdijk, The Netherlands:*** Some of the 19 windmills that once defended the city from flood waters. (dj)

***Tuesday, September 29, 2026 - Huizen, The Netherlands:*** Eurasian Magpie. This bird was often spotted at many points along our route but was always too fast to be photographed. This last day there were many in Huizen and I got this one.

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