Rhine - Mosel Discovery - Day 1

Day 1 Monday 24 April

We had booked the Rhine-Mosel Discover Cruise on the Viking Hild travelling from Basel to Koblenz down the Rhine and then to Trier up the Mosel with a return flight from Luxembourg Airport. There were stops with included tours at Strasbourg, Speyer Mainz, Koblenz, Cochem, Bernkastel and Trier.

 Dan and Krisie joined us for their first river cruise.

Pick-up at 05:15 for 08:15 flight. We had a speedy journey and Joan's Gold Card got us in the BA T5 First Class lounge. There was a self-serve full cooked breakfast but we had a couple of rashers of back bacon in a bread roll with coffee.

But they had Palmer & Co Champagne on self-pour and as we'd been up for some time by then it seemed rude not to have a glass.

We met Dan and Krisie on the plane and we all had Castelnau Champagne.

The Asian Vegetarian hot breakfast was weird, comprising of a pleasant but bland chickpea curry almost covered by a large tasteless rice cake.

At Basel there were about 20 of us for the Hild. Two other coaches were filled by passengers for Idun which was making the Basel to Amsterdam cruise we'd taken last year.

The two boats were rafted. We boarded about 11:30 and our Veranda Staterooms - 233 for us and 231 for D&K -  were ready. 

View from lunch table

Just  time to unpack before we met Dan and Krisie in the restaurant for the embarkation dinner. Pasta was with pesto. I had a rather tasty Thai Green Chicken Curry and rice.

Lounge and bar

There was no tour of Basel because at about 14:30 we set off for Strasbourg. About 18:30 the rest of the passengers joined the boat at a short stop at Kembs. They were North Americans who'd been on the pre-cruise extension in Zurich accompanied by Programme Director Jamie Paxton.

We had a glass of Veuve Cliquot in the lounge before dinner.

As we all had the drinks package included in our booking Dan chose from the wine list Symington's Altano 2020 (Portugal, Douro), a tasty red blend  of traditional varieties.

The included house wines were Heinrich Volmer Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Heinrich Volmer Altum Meisterstuch, a red blend of unnamed varieties.