What do you get when you put one young couple on a riverboat with 150 older Americans cruising for two weeks on the Danube, Main and Rhine rivers from Austria to the Netherlands? A really good time.
Mac and I were lucky enough to be on the River Aria in July. Originally the idea had been Mac’s, but somewhere along the way I became the one in charge of booking the cruise. Grand Circle Cruise Line told us on the phone that we would be the youngest couple on board by far, but we didn’t mind. We had a sneaking suspicion that we’d still make friends really easily—and we did.
Our first night on board, we met these two lovely couples; they became some of our favorite people on the ship.
After being by ourselves for just over three months now, we were really excited to have lots of other people to talk to. So starting our first day on the boat, we went crazy meeting new people, dining with new people and being introduced to even more new people. And over the course of 14 days on board, we developed all kinds of friendships.
It helped that we were the very silly young people. We bought traditional Bavarian outfits and wore them out, taught the macarena at the on-board dance and even participated in one of the crew’s nightly birthday serenades, wearing wild hats and everything.
While meals were some of our favorite times on board, because they were long and leisurely and full of interesting conversation, another highlight of our time on the riverboat was sitting on the sundeck and watching the world—and castles—go by.
Sometimes we went under low bridges and we’d all have to duck. The captain even had to lower the wheelhouse–only his head would poke out from the top.
We didn’t always have what they called “scenic sailing” (sometimes the boat moved at night while we were sleeping and would be docked during the day) but nearly every day we arrived in a new town. Our longest stretch of towns to visit was in Germany. We both loved the Bavarian towns. There was no shortage of things to see, from cathedrals to town halls to half-timbered houses.
There was plenty to taste, too. I don’t even know how many different kinds of sausage we tried while in Germany, but it was a lot.
I kept my eyes out for interesting signs.
Mac checked out the architecture . . . and dreamed of having his own huge wine barrel.
Eventually our cruise dropped us off in Amsterdam and it was time to say goodbye to riverboat life, ports of call and all of our new friends. I’ll be honest; I shed a few tears at having to say goodbye to such wonderful folks. When you’re traveling and isolated from your friends and family, you learn to appreciate the shooting stars of people you meet on the road—and the river. It doesn’t matter whether they’re in your life for five days or five hours. People, even more than places, are the true joy of travel.