Your day starts with breakfast onboard… sharing your favorite table by the window with the couple you became friends with at your welcome dinner… enjoying your favorite buffet selections just the way you like them… along with great views of the castles and fairy-tale villages lining the banks of the river, and lighthearted conversation with your companions. The riverboat docks right around the time you’re finished with breakfast; you couldn’t have asked for better timing…
As you step off the riverboat, our local experts eagerly await to show you around the historic riverside city they call home; soon it may feel like home to you as well. You’ll spend the rest of your morning exploring with your local guide, discovering the city’s medieval heart, with its winding canals, millennium-old towers and bridges, and cobblestone streets so different from those you’re used to back home. You might decide to stay ashore for lunch in a local biergarten, sampling the sausages and locally crafted beers they’ve made here for ages – or return to the riverboat for lunch onboard. If it’s a warm day, the ship’s staff will greet you with a cool towel and a cold drink upon your return (or hot towels and a hot drink if it’s a tad chilly). Maybe you’ll indulge in a glass of local wine as the riverboat sets off, and you wave farewell to the city you just explored… and fell in love with.
Back aboard, you’ll have some time to explore your “floating hotel.” You spot the couple from this morning about to take a dip in the Jacuzzi. “Like to join us?” they ask. You say you’d love to, and are soon relaxing and chatting as you bask in the sun, sipping a cool drink. Refreshed, you head into the lobby just in time to watch the riverboat dock; once ashore, you have the choice of spending the afternoon exploring a world-famous Gothic cathedral built nearly a thousand years ago and the picture-perfect town that grew up around it, or being active on a bicycle tour along an amazing stretch of the river.
Dinner tonight may be something you have never experienced before… an evening in an authentic Bavarian castle perched hundreds of feet above the river… the kind you’ve seen in fairy-tales! The castle looks exactly as you’ve pictured it should, its turrets emerging out of the rocky bank and towering over the forest as your Tauck Director and local guide fill you in on the history that surrounds you. Your jaw drops as you walk through the castle’s massive gates and are escorted to an incredible grand hall right out of the middle ages, complete with huge arched windows and medieval armor and weaponry adorning the walls. The couple you had breakfast with joins you, bringing along some new friends, and you’re all transported back a thousand years as you dig into a medieval meal you won’t soon forget. You don’t want the evening to end, but alas, it must… another Tauck experience to check off on the “wow” list…
Heading back to the riverboat with your companions, you notice the lights reflecting on the river, and stop for a few moments’ reflection of your own. Back on board, you take a moment to send a quick note about your day to the folks back home, then meet some friends for a little more camaraderie around the piano in the lounge before calling it a night. Later, drifting off to sleep, you smile… realizing that you’ll soon be waking up in another magical city… to embark on another perfect day of your Tauck river cruise…