Viking River Cruise - Duisburg to Cologne
(72 Reviews)
99% Recommended
Rachel Erdman
Afton, MN
Detail Oriented Experience Planner
Whether creating a once in a lifetime trip for you or a multi - generational experience to take your family back to your roots. I love creating unique itineraries for my clients! Why not take two or three weeks to go exploring and immerse yourself...
Whether creating a once in a lifetime trip for you or a multi - generational experience to take your family back to your roots. I love creating unique itineraries for my clients! Why not take two or three weeks to go exploring and immerse yourself in the culture or experience the romance of train travel. How about relaxing on the waterways of Europe. Whether it be on the rivers or cruising the ocean waters, you can have everything taken care of for you. You only unpack once but you will experience many regions full of culture. Europe is full of history and charm; whether you explore it on your own, on a guided vacation, a river cruise or a combination of experiences, it will be an amazing time for sure!
I have been an agent for over 20 years. I lived in Northern England when I was in college. While there I enjoyed the opportunity to experience Europe as a student traveler with many return trips all across Europe since. I have explored the South Pacific with experiences in Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia. I love to continue to travel and learn so that I may share my experiences with my clients.
Over the past few years I have been fortunate to head back and explore more of Scotland, England and New Zealand; seeing what has changed and receive updates on places I have been before. I have also been experiencing new places like St. Lucia, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. A honeymoon through Bavaria, Austria & Switzerland with Insight Vacations was definitely a highlight as well. This past year I was able to return to Ireland to explore with Insight Vacations Luxury Gold - an amazing experience including two nights at the stunning Ashford Castle. Most recent travels included England with Trafalgar Tours and experiencing the Disney Cruise Line, this time with my family!
I have worked hard to obtain my Accredited Cruise Counselor certification. To do this I needed to do course work, inspect a number of ships and also sail on a few cruises to experience them first hand. I have also completed my Certified Travel Associate through the Travel Institute and Travel Leaders Leisure Travel Specialist course. I love working in the travel industry is because it is always changing and evolving. Keeping up with the trends and changes keeps my job interesting. Continuing to train and experience new places helps to keep me on my toes and ready to assist you where you wish to go!
Can Be Reached At
1-651-202-1815
Cologne Cathedral lights up the sky!
We awoke to sailing down the river with a snowy countryside – a fresh layer on the ground to greet us. We were dropped off in Duisburg to take buses to see the Air Package/Gasometer in Oberhausen, Germany. We also had the option to stay onboard if we wanted but we heard there really wouldn’t be anything worth seeing. I hadn’t heard of Christo before, but many others in our group were familiar with him and his works. There was a Minnesota connection as Christo had done one of his projects with the Minneapolis Institute of Art back in the 1960’s.
We then had the option to go to Essen, Germany to visit either the Zollverein Coal Mine or the Red Dot Museum (both in the same complex). I opted to see the Red Dot Museum. It is the world’s largest museum housing contemporary design with over 2,000 products. The products are submitted and then if they receive the Red Dot award, they send their product in to be displayed. There was everything from a Novopen (for insulin), fire extinguisher, strollers, office furniture, a motorcycle, kitchen products, bath products and an area dedicated to Steve Jobs. It was neat to see the old building with new vibrant, bright products inside. It wasn’t anything I probably would have ever discovered on my own.
This afternoon, we set sail for Cologne. Scenery along the river was nice. I could imagine its beauty once spring had sprung, it was a little early yet being that we were sailing in March.
Arriving into Cologne was majestic. What a beautiful city! We arrived early enough that we had time to experience an evening mini-pub crawl. What was great was the ship was docked overnight in Cologne so we had the night to do as we wished. After the pub crawl, we took the opportunity to check out the cathedral all lit up in the night sky – just amazing!