BACKDROP PHOTO: Marksburg Castle of Braubach.
ABOVE: The Alruna, Viking Cruise Line river boat.
INSET: New friends, Mark and Laurie MacShane from
Minnesota, and Kathy and Tim Grannan from Ohio
with us, J. Chris and Larry Mickartz as we sail down
the Rhine viewing some fifty castles.
Special thanks to Laurie MacShane for many of
the photos included in this article.
I
n June 2017, J.Chris and I celebrated our 20th
anniversary by taking a cruise down the Rhine River
from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
It was J.Chris’ first trip to Europe. We chose the
Viking Cruise line for our trip and were very pleased that
we did. Viking does it right — and a river boat with just
180 passengers and fifty crew members made for a perfect
adventure — just the right blend of siteseeing, cruising,
culinary exploration, relaxation and socialization.
We began our adventure with a ten-hour flight to
Amsterdam from SFO on KLM. We had upgraded to Economy
Class for additional leg room — a very good idea for such a
long flight. Once seated, we had the pleasure of meeting Gina
San Pietro who was sitting in our third seat. Gina is a world
traveler who lives in the Bay Area but has a second home in
Italy with her husband who is a civil engineer serving in the
Air Force. She was very knowledgeable about travel and our
conversations made the time fly. After a continued visit at the
Amsterdam airport, we said goodbye to Gina and promised to
keep in touch. We then boarded our short connecting flight
90
to Basel where we were met and shuttled to the ship by the
Viking folks and before we knew it, we were in our stateroom
primed for our journey.
The voyage began with a formal introduction and
orientation to the ship by the crew. One of the things that
struck us was the international makeup of the crew…a Dutch
Captain, an Irish Cruse Director, a Romanian Hotel Manager,
a Polish Head of Housekeeping, and Filipino Maître d’ and
Executive Chef. Another was that everyone spoke English as
well as several other languages. While their English was not
always perfect, it was not pretentious and much better
than most guests: Swiss, French, German or Dutch.
Our ship was the Alruna, a 443-foot, 190-passenger
riverboat originally launched in 2016. In Old Norse
mythology, Alruna was one of three sisters who connected
up with three brothers. She was a Valkyrie or one who
decided who was to live or die in battle. Alruna went off
to battle herself and did not return. The ship Alruna
has three decks and 95 rooms. It travels
well on its hybrid diesel-electric