A few years ago, I spent a few days on a friend’s narrow boat, easing our way along some of the glories of Britain’s inland waterways. At one point, with a pleasantly warm sun smiling on us, we found ourselves having to queue at a busy lock.
“Just think,” my friend said, leaning forward in his deck-chair. “If you were in London now, sitting in your car in a long line of stationary vehicles, you’d be tense and angry, but here… have another glass of wine.” Which I did.
There is something exceptionally soothing about being borne along a waterway, specifically an inland waterway. I know that thousands of holidaymakers return annually to some vast ocean cruise ship or another but I don’t relish spending endless days surrounded by nothing but Coleridge’s “water, water everywhere”.
A river cruise, by contrast, with regular stops and land always reassuringly in sight, seems to me to be an ideal kind of holiday — as a recent trip along the Danube confirmed.
One of a captivating range of cruises from Titan Travel, including such rivers as the Garonne, Nile, Volga, Mississippi and even the Yangtze, they also provide a VIP pick-up from (and return to) your home back on dry land, which is the ultimately pleasurable way of beginning and ending a trip.
Which is why I spent a stress-less 5am journey to Heathrow for a flight to Munich, followed by a coach journey to Passau — a town where three rivers converge at Germany’s border with Austria.
Here, the MS Serenade 1 was waiting to waltz us along the “Blue” Danube to Nuremberg via Vienna, with some passengers continuing to Prague. My room (they seem not to call them cabins) was comfortably above the water line, with fine views and more than adequate hanging and storage space.
The bed was comfortable but, while all necessary amenities were included, the bath-and-shower room was a bit of a squeeze.
We would return to Passau during our journey, and screw up our eyes at the blazing Baroque interior of St Stephen’s Cathedral, where the world’s largest cathedral organ is to be found. They’re big on Baroque round here.
The inside of the church at Weltenburg Abbey, for example, is decorated in a riotously Baroque style with a lustre that would dazzle an Aztec.
But maybe this was an exaggerated impression prompted by our having first visited the other, rather more popular attraction at this Bavarian tourist hotspot.
For, within the grounds of Weltenburg Abbey lies the world’s oldest monastic brewery, where beer has been produced since the 11th century. And we each consumed a mighty glass of a deep, dark and tasty liquid, served with pretzels.
Weltenberg is not the only spectacular Benedictine abbey in the area with a thousand-year-plus history. In Melk, where this holiday’s introductory tour takes place, there is an immaculately kept abbey, one where Joseph II managed to stem the extravagance of the high Baroque.
Perhaps the most picturesque part of our voyage was through the Wachau Valley and the small town of Durnstein, where Richard the Lionheart was held captive in the 12th century.
Nowadays, it’s known for its aromatic sweetness — evident in a fascinating wine-tasting session and the ubiquitous apricot conserve.
But the trip’s high point (at least for those of us not going on to Prague — where the somewhat Christological aspects of the cruise can be balanced by a visit to the Jewish Quarter and the Altneu Synagogue) is the city of Vienna.
Vienna’s artistic community is currently buzzing, with centenary celebrations of the lives and works of four of Vienna’s creative sons who died in 1918.
Gustav Klimt is widely represented in the city’s Belvedere gallery, which contains the biggest collection of his paintings, including the famous, shimmeringly golden Kiss.
The other artistic centenaries being marked in the Austrian capital are of Klimt’s pupil, Egon Schiele, who, at the age of 28, died in the same year as his mentor; Otto Wagner, an architect whose stamp can still be seen on Vienna’s buildings; and the artist and designer Koloman Moser.
Vienna is certainly an exciting city, with its art, music, cafés, mélange of architectural styles round the Ring and the Imperial Palace, the clock museum and the Hundertwasserhaus.
But there are also memorials to Shoah victims and a Jewish museum, which are part of the dark, poignant aspect of the capital. And, as a first-time visitor walking around the city, I could almost feel the presence of ghosts.
This is a feeling that can come on particularly vividly in the city of Linz, where tourists flock to the cobblestoned “old town”.
It was here, from an inconspicuous-looking balcony in the main square, that Hitler announced the instigation of the Anschluss to a crowd of thousands of cheering Austrians.
But do take the cruise for celebratory as well as poignant reasons. There’s plenty of fun to be had on the boat, as well as ashore.
Drinking on the upper deck on a warm, summer’s evening takes some beating and the food on the MS Serenade 1, was certainly plentiful and varied — not kosher but lots of fish and vegetarian offerings — and the wine isn’t bad.
The entertainment is a hoot, thanks mainly to the versatile and good-humoured pianist and vocalist Pavol, who, in recognition of the vintage of most of his almost totally British audience, blasted out rock and pop favourites from 1950s Elvis to 1980s Whitney Houston, and played every request we had.
On-board cruise entertainment doesn’t enjoy the best of reputations but Pavol was able to turn shy Manchester matrons and bashful Brummie bakers into dance-floor demons.
From Pavol’s rousing rendition of Blue Suede Shoes to those blue Danube views, it’s more proof that a river cruise leaves you feeling in the pink.
Find out more about Titan Travel cruises here.
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