River Cruise Cancelled, But We Went Anyway

We had never seen The Netherlands so from Ghent we decided to base ourselves in Utrecht and see it and some other surrounding areas. On the way, we saw the Antwerp railroad station, which is an incredible railroad station, with beautiful architecture.

In Utrecht we settled into an Airbnb for 9 nights. Utrecht Is a very beautiful city with somewhere between 300 and 400,000 people of whom 70,000 are college students. I felt old walking around Utrecht. So many college students on bicycles. But it’s beautiful, with lots of canals like Amsterdam. We did a lot of walking around, visited Cathedrals, Went to the Flower Market on the weekend, Took a boat ride in the canals and just generally saw a lot of beautiful stuff. We took a day trip to Amsterdam which was very enjoyable and another day trip to a small town called Amersfoort. We noticed how many of the Dutch are unusually tall.

The Netherlands has a wonderful train system. You don’t need a ticket. When you enter the station, you swipe your credit card, take whatever train you choose, make connections if necessary, and when you reach your final destination and exit the station, you swipe the same credit card, and they bill you the correct amount. I used Apple Pay and it was the easiest thing in the world.

From Utrecht we decided to move to Cologne Germany since it was a direct train and it was on the route to Zurich. We spent four nights and three full days in Cologne. The highlight was the Cologne Cathedral which is one of the most awesome cathedrals I’ve ever seen, with very beautiful stained glass windows and lots of history which I got from ChatGPT again. AI is such a great tour guide; you just point your camera at something and say “tell me about this” and it will tell you all about it. Inside Cologne Cathedral is gold reliquary About 4 feet long 3 feet high and a couple of feet wide, really a very small thing compared to the enormous cathedral, but it’s the reason the cathedral was built. It supposedly contains the bones of the three kings that visited Jesus when he was born and so many people visited the original cathedral to see that object that they had to build this giant cathedral to manage all the pilgrims.

I didn’t enjoy Cologne as much as I enjoyed Utrecht or Ghent or even Brussels. Maybe we were getting tired at that point, but Cologne is a big noisy city with lots of car traffic and I didn’t find it all that interesting except for the cathedral.

From there we moved to Zurich to spend a week visiting family, and that part has very little to do with being a tourist so I’m not going to elaborate on what we did in Zurich. I would say, however, that this is the 4th time I’ve been to Zurich and I’m starting to like it more and more. I wouldn’t put it in my top-10 list of places for a tourist, but the lifestyle is really wonderful, with a great public transportation system and beautiful places to walk around and see. It’s also very clean. And if you lived there, the railroad system could take you anywhere in Europe because it is so centrally located. And in our case, we have relatives there.

We did take a day trip to Gruyere, France, which is a wonderful little village, very picturesque, with an old castle which we toured.

We really enjoyed Zurich. So guess what we’re about to do.

... I'm guessing relocate to Zurich?

Great job in turning lemons to lemonade.

Thanks for the report! I love how you just made it a great trip even though you had to make up a plan on the fly.

Thanks for sharing your trip report. It's wonderful that you were able to turn your cancelled cruise into a wonderful trip in such a short time.

So when do you head back?

Okay, Marty. Don't leave us hanging...

I enjoyed reading how you rescued your trip.

I love this trip report!!! We are taking a chance nxt Aug on a river cruise…thinking we’d do what you did if cancelled from Amsterdam. I now know we do need to visit and stay in Ghent and Utrecht! Thank you!!!

We did a daytrip to Ghent last October from Bruges and wish we'd spent more time. My favourite memory is that the city smelled like chocolate. I swear the chocolate shops were pumping out the smell.

I agree with how handy AI is when touring. Not only to point at something to get info, but also to translate signs or even when taking public transit for the first time in a new place, you can quickly get a crash course on how to pay, if you need to validate, etc.

Honestly I would take a real live art historian person over an AI one any day. Hope we still have that choice in future travels.

Great live TR ... interesting what captures your attention when you have a lot of flexibility. Sounds like you and Zürich found each other. Enjoy!

Lavandula

The Other Marty you have the right idea, roll with the punches and have fun. Happy it all worked out.

Okay, Marty. Don't leave us hanging...

So when do you head back?

We're thinking of spending a very extended time in Zurich next year, living like locals, but staying under the 90 day limit.

Honestly I would take a real live art historian person over an AI one any day. Hope we still have that choice in future travels.

I agree with you. I also hope we have that choice, but the advantage of using AI on your cell phone is that it is always in your pocket and available any time, and it's free, and it's not only an art historian. As someone mentioned earlier, it'll tell you how to use the train, give you options on where to go next, map out a walking tour, and answer any question about anything.

What a terrific report.

We did a seven night river cruise from Amsterdam to Basel a few years ago, and there were water issues then.

I had a complete plan B worked out using trains, since I really, really dislike bus travel. Luckily we didn't need it and were able to sail.

I'm interested in the system for catching trains in the Netherlands. We have been a few times, but not since 2019, and we certainly were buying tickets then. It sounds like a sensible system and I love it when I can tap my Apple watch and that's it.

“ I'm interested in the system for catching trains in the Netherlands. We have been a few times, but not since 2019, and we certainly were buying tickets then. It sounds like a sensible system and I love it when I can tap my Apple watch and that's it.”

While the tapping in and out system works great, you can save significantly on train tickets if you’re willing to travel outside the peak hours and buy a so-called Price Time deal in advance. You can then receive a discount of up to 60%, whereas you’ll always pay the full fare when you use the tap in and out method to pay for the train.
More info and how to purchase here; https://www.ns.nl/en/featured/prijstijd-deal
https://www.ns.nl/en/featured/prijstijd-deal

While the tapping in and out system works great, you can save significantly on train tickets if you’re willing to travel outside the peak hours and buy a so-called Price Time deal in advance.

That's interesting. I didn't know that.

I looked it up, and the ticket from Utrecht to Amsterdam using the tap in and out method is 10 Euros, and the discounted ticket is 6 Euros.

Thanks Marty for your interesting TR. I'm sorry about your cruise but so very happy you found something that might have worked better!

I love the Ghent Altarpiece! Did you all do the Augmented Reality program down in the crypt?

Wow, great trip report, and thanks for the update to your cancelled cruise. Interesting you started another thread about how hard it is to be spontaneous, but you really made it work for you, congrats!

I love the Ghent Altarpiece! Did you all do the Augmented Reality program down in the crypt?

No, we did not. Have you done that?

Oh yes, I've done it twice. It's not virtual reality but augmented so you can see thru the glasses to what is around you and is not as disorienting to me. You walk to different stations in the crypt for a little scenario. Very informative!

Their depiction of so many different kinds of flowers, trees and shrubs is so amazing to me. I even took my binoculars last trip so I could stand at the back of the room away from the crowd and have a closer look at the detail Jan and his brother included.

https://visit.gent.be/en/heavenly-garden

I took a picture, loaded it into ChatGPT, and asked it to tell me about the altarpiece, and it gave me the most detailed and interesting information about it. An art historian could not have done better.

Well, this makes me terribly sad.

Loved your report! Thanks for sharing.

Their depiction of so many different kinds of flowers, trees and
shrubs is so amazing to me. I even took my binoculars last trip so I
could stand at the back of the room away from the crowd and have a
closer look at the detail Jan and his brother included.

Binoculars! Something else I have neglected to pack recently, excellent for viewing way up high in churches. Thanks Pam.

Glad that even though the cruise was cancelled, you still went ahead with the trip! What a change of plans. You ended up having a really nice trip anyway, and I loved reading about all the places you visited along the way.

Glad that even though the cruise was cancelled, you still went ahead with the trip! What a change of plans. You ended up having a really nice trip anyway, and I loved reading about all the places you visited along the way.

A lot of (last-minute) thought and discussion and research went into the route we wound up taking. In the end, one of the overriding factors was how easy was it to get from where we were to where we were going. We had to start in Belgium and wind up in Zurich, Switzerland about 16 or 17 days later. Ghent to Utrecht required a train change in Antwerp, but that allowed us to see the really beautiful Antwerp train station. Then there was a direct train from Utrecht to Cologne and a direct train from Cologne to Zurich.

We also decided that in the middle of the trip it would be nice to rent an apartment with a washer so we could do our clothes. But last minute apartment rentals are pretty hit and miss. We wound up in an apartment in Utrecht which was really nice except for the fact that there was a bar across the street and the patrons were raising hell all night long. Also, the bedroom was upstairs and the bathroom was downstairs.

Amsterdam was a lot of fun, though it was only a day trip. It was amusing to see about a hundred people lined up to get what we call french fries. I asked someone, "Why are you lined up for these fries?" and they said, "Because they're so good." And then there was the little Thai place that apparently some influencer had visited, and the people were lined up so far they had to start a line across the street on the bridge to keep them out of the way of traffic. And the sign said the wait was an hour. Unless they're doing something in there besides serving food, I don't see the point in waiting an hour when there were restaurants all over the place. That little tiny Thai restaurant had about 5 guys managing the line outside and guarding the door. Big cities are so funny because people will stand in line for an hour for something they can get next door for half the price.