"New Years Eve River Cruises (2014-15)"
on the Rhine Princess
We have been on a Rhine Cruise with Leger for the last two years and this blog will summarise our experiences on both occasions. We made the trip with our good friends Nick and Olwen with John and Tony as our ever faithful drivers. The wonderful time we had on the first cruise led us and many of the friends we met in 2014-15 to rebook for the 2015-16 cruise and we were not disappointed.
The river boat we used for the cruise (the Rhine Princess) was dedicated exclusively to Leger customers for both trips and we like this boat very much. I think it is due in part to good service provided but also the fact that Leger encourage such a great atmosphere for a New Year Party and everyone, regardless of age or creed was determined to enjoy themselves. The cruise started at Cologne and went as far south as Rudesheim before returning to Koblenz for the New Year Eve celebrations.
In both holidays we left on the 29th December for the drive to Cologne in Germany where we boarded the Rhine Princess and came home on the 2nd January, just a short stay but time to have a ball. Again both holidays followed a similar itinery and the account below unless otherwise stated applies in both case; also I've mixed up the photos of each holiday with the date of each shown on the caption.
We met our coach at the Folkestone interchange and made the crossing by ferry to Calais. After a fairly long drive through France, Belgium and Germany we arrived at the Rhine Princess which was berthed in Cologne. The cabins were very comfortable and crew although with some changes between holidays were very welcoming. We were served a nice simple meal as it was quite late when we arrived and relaxed for a couple of hours in the bar before retiring to bed.
The next day we walked into Cologne, had a look round the cathedral, walked to the market where we also tasted the mulled wine and generally relaxed before returning to the boat around mid-day for the start of our cruise up the Rhine. We were in Cologne the day before the trouble with the migrants on the last trip but saw none of this which took place the night after we left (30th). The boat left Cologne and cruised upriver to moor for the night at Andernach.
In the evening after our meal we (the boys) had decided to go through the cocktail menu which proved to be a wonderful experience for me and Nick. Cocktails such as Planters Punch, Black Russian, Pina Collada, Sex on the Beach, etc, etc were sampled with alacrity and I especially remember the B52's which involve layers of Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Marnier on the top which is set alight. Unfortunately, John who (late in the evening!) lined up 14 of these on the bar for friends but forgot to blow his out before drinking it and singed his eyebrows in the process.
One of the Leger directors was on board with his family and it is a tradition of his to always come on this trip as he enjoys it so much. During the evening we were standing watching one of the other Rhine cruise ships go past and he commented that although the ship was very posh and no doubt extremely expensive in comparison to ours, there was nothing going on to create the sort of atmosphere we had, i.e. singing and dancing, music playing and people having a great time. This is what makes the Leger New Years Eve cruise such a fantastic holiday and great way to enjoy the New Year; if we had been at home we would probably have been in bed or watching TV, instead we were having a great time with friends.
We left Andernach and continued south before mooring up at Oberwesel for our first tour to Rudesheim; in Dec 2015 the river was so low that the boat had to moor further away from Rudesheim at Boppard. After parking up we boarded the noddy train which took us into the center of Rudesheim which has a quaint little shopping area (the Drosselgasse) and the renowned Siegfried's Mechanical Museum as its main attraction; having seen this the year before we gave this a miss on our 2015-16 trip. It's quite remarkable that such a small road the Drosselgasse and Rudesheim generally is such a popular place to visit by English and German tourists; I guess the museum and the famous Rudesheim coffee (see next para) are big attractions.
The museum was quite interesting if you like historical, self playing, musical instruments such as a piano controlled by a punched roll and a violin playing machine where several violins move against fixed bows - amazing machines that were all the rage 200 years ago. We headed for the international Hotel to sample their famous Rudesheim Coffee which is made in front of you and, whilst a bit sweet for me, was a necessary experience when visiting Rudesheim. The coffee is a bit like Irish coffee made with Asbach brandy instead of whisky and it certainely warmed us up on a cold day in Germany! We returned to the boat and made our way back to Koblenz for our New Years Eve celebrations.
The highlight of our cruise is of course New Year's Eve when we actually celebrate both the UK and German New Year, remembering that Germany celebrate New Year one hour earlier than we normally do in the UK.
The evening starts when we all get togged up in our best evening suits and dresses and make our way to the lounge for cocktails which is then followed by a Gala Dinner. The crew work very hard for this evening and I cannot compliment them enough for what they do to make this a memorable time for everyone on board. The resident musician plays and sings throughout the evening which culminates at midnight with a fantastic fireworks display which we see from the deck.
This display is not an organised event but appears to be a bit like Nov 5th here where the residents of Koblenz have their individual displays and with fireworks going off everywhere it is quite stunning. Unfortunately the photos don't do it justice and the image here shows what it really looks like, not the rather fuzzy shots taken by us with our ordinary cameras. At midnight we celebrated with our fellow passengers and friends in the traditional way; Jane even tried to climb on board the cruise ship moored alongside us to celebrate with their passengers; fortunately we managed to stop her before she fell between the two boats or was smuggled off and lost forever. After the midnight display we returned to the party inside and an hour later at 1am we had a further celebration with Auld Langs Syn and a good old knees-up. The evening carried on until either we were exhausted or as in the case of our first trip the cocktail ingredients ran out; our coctail waiter had done such a great job for the last two evening that we couldn't complain - we'd drunk him dry!!
On our first trip, for New Year's day we had booked to go on a winetasting tour to the cellar of Anton Hammes at Alken which is on the Mosel river. Unfortunately, my wife suffers with a bit of claustrophobia and the celler was very dark and she suffered a panic attack which rather spoilt the day; in fact neither of us are very keen on German wines so this was not much of a hardship and consequently on our second trip (Jan 16), we decided wisely not to go on the winetasting and instead walked along to the cable car lift by the junction of the Mosel and Rhine.
This took us up to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress at the top of the far bank (east) and was well worth the effort, even for Olwen who suffers with a fear of heights. We had already been informed of differences between the two rivers, Mosel and Rhine, which meet at Koblenz in particular that the Rhine is an working river used for industrial transport and has a brown colour whilst the smaller, quiter Mosel is more for leisure and for wine growing and is green in colour. Whilst taking the cable car up to the fortress this colour difference is quite pronounced; it's almost as if someone has drawn a line across the junction and is hard to understand how it maintains this effect.
As I like to do when I visit any place of special interest I do some research when I get home and this fortress was one of those places. Because of the obvious strategic position of Koblenz and the hill above it there have been fortifications at the top since the 10th century BC and in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD a Roman fortification was sited there. Ehrenbreitstein guarded the most valuable relic of the Trier See, the Holy Tunic, from 1657 to 1794; this was purported to be the Seamless Robe of Jesus which is the robe said to have been worn by Jesus during or shortly before his crucifixion; the exact location of this now is unclear but has been reported to be in the Eastern Orthodox church in Moscow. Many believe it no longer exists, perhaps due to the persecution of the church after the Russin revolution and the advent of communism.
The current fortress was originally built in the year 1000 by Ehrenbert but when this area became a Prussion province in 1815, an extensive ring of fortifications were built up around it and would have been home to around 1200 soldiers. In 2002 this fortress became a UNESCO Worl Heritage site. Jane, with her black hat, coat and boots and looking every inch Herr Flick (Allo, Allo) decided to goose step her way around the grounds of the fortress but thankfully there were no tourists around who might take offence. We saw the memorial to the German Army which is in the grounds and also looked round the museums but as everything was in German, we were not able to understand the meaning of the various photos and artefacts which was a great shame as I'm sure they would have been very interesting!!
After lunch we set off for Bonn (our final port of call) on the Rhine Princess and had a leisurely cruise north which after the hectic days before was quite welcome; the next day we said goodbye to the crew and some of our friends who would be going back on a different coach and set off for Calais and the journey home. A fantastic few days break and we intend to repeat the experience in New Year 2016-17, in fact since we arrived back we have already booked up to go again this year with our friends. As we have grown older, New Years have become quiet and a bit dull, which I'm sure is not unusual for those of us oldies whose families have grown up and flown the nest so I say thank-you to Leger for providing us with a New Year lease of life.
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