Brussels To Amsterdam 2025

  Evening greetings from Wesel, Germany. We arrived in Wesel right on time. We had an included excursion scheduled to Xanthen but decided not to go after a discussion with one of the other passengers. The place we were going was a re-creation of an ampitheatre from Roman times and did not really excite us. We decided to walk into the town center to explore on our own. The walk was only 1.2 km from the boat and was easy. We were hoping to see more quaint buildings and cobblestoned streets but instead walked through a modern shopping area, a few blocks filled with stores and restaurants. If there was a historic area, we missed it. We have become quite good at making the most of situations and so we did. We were in a luggage store and saw some very lightweight travel umbrellas. I brought a travel umbrella with me but it liked the bus we took from Brussels to Antwerp so much that it stayed behind and who knows where it is now. I do hope that it has found a happy home and will be able t...

  We sailed from Nijmegen at 3:45 in the morning and are now on our way to Wesel, Germany and are scheduled to arrive around 1 pm this afternoon. There is a casino in Nijmegen, and I don't know if any passengers went in to the casino last night in an attempt to recoup the cost of the cruise. We enjoyed our time in Nijmegen. For those of you of the Catholic faith, a friend replied to my post reminding me that Nijmegen is the birthplace of the Dutch Catechism in 1966. For me it was but a dim memory, but as I recall it was quite controversial and was not universally acclaimed by the Catholic Church hierarchy and powers that be. By the time the Dutch Catechism was published, my 5 1/2 year seminary career had come to an end and I do not recall hearing about it in any of the required theology courses I took at USF post seminary days.   Our walking tour of Nijmegen was another delight. Our guide Tosca was delightful and her narrative was properly dramatic and added enjoyment to our w...

  Good morning from The Viking Kvasir . We left Maastricht last night at 7 and are on our way to Nijmegen . Our sailing has been very smooth and we have met many very nice fellow travelers, primarily from the United States and mostly of a certain age, although some are on the younger side, meaning in their 60s, with perhaps a few still south of 60. The weather has been a mixture of rain and cold, so if you travel to Northern Europe at this time of the year, prepare accordingly. Today's forecast is for sun and clouds, no rain, and temperatures in the mid 50s, a virtual heat wave. The food onboard is good and plentiful, not non-fat, and presented very nicely. We both wish dinner were served earlier than 7 pm because we are both early dinner eaters and sometimes we have not left the dining room until close to or after 9 pm. Other than that, no complaints.   Yesterday, we fell in love with the old part of Maastricht . We had a guided walking tour and were charmed by the medieval ...

 We have moved a bit since the last blog post. Yesterday we were in Brussels and Antwerp, today we were in Antwerp, and we are now underway to Maastricht in the Netherlands. As yesterday was our last day in Brussels, there were no planned excursions, just packing and tagging our bags with our cabin number tags, checking out of the hotel and  boarding the bus for the ride to Antwerp. We did get out for a short walk on our own in a search for an extra pair of sun glasses for me as well as a cane, because I left mine back in California. One place we searched for the sunglasses was an optical store, but since the lowest price we saw for a pair of sunglasses was about 140 Euros I decided against buying there. Finding the cane proved to be much easier. We walked into a pharmacy and canes were right in front of us. Even I could not miss them. We eventually found sunglasses for a much more reasonable price thanks to Patti's eagle eyes when we walked into a recycled clothing store. Sun...

  After a good night of sleep we feel refreshed. In spite of our best intentions, we did not even make it to 8:00 pm last night, but we slept well; and with the additional hour we got due to the time change, we got up feeling well rested this morning. This morning we had a tour of Brussels via bus and on foot. Brussels is divided between the upper city and the lower city. Our Hotel, the Stiegenberger Icon Wilthcher's is in the upper city and the highlight of the tour, the Grand Place, is in the lower city. Along the way we passed various types of architecture spanning from the 15th century to the 20th century and found that the modern architecture is quite sterile and unappealing compared to the older architecture. Since Brussels has medieval roots, the many of the streets are narrow and windy and cobblestoned. Cobblestones can be tricky because they are not always even and occasionally one or two may be missing, so exercise care when walking and wear sensible walking shoes, not sh...