The undiscovered gems

The Baltimore Sun

ANTWERP, BELGIUM / / This is about an Amsterdam-to-Amsterdam river cruise, which sounds like the boat didn't go anywhere or maybe just changed neighborhoods.

But no.

Over seven days, the MV Heidelberg -- part of the Germany-based Peter Deilmann luxury fleet -- floated along various conduits to Rotterdam and Veere (Netherlands), Ghent and Antwerp (Belgium), and back into the Netherlands for a stop at Arnhem before settling back into that notorious Amsterdam haze.

Though not before getting access to some pretty cool places in addition to that list of ports: Brussels and Brugge in Belgium, and Delft and Middelburg in the Netherlands.

The itinerary has been tweaked slightly for this year: Primary tweak is Arnhem is out, Volendam -- a Dutch charmer -- is in.

The boat was wonderful. The crew was the best. The food was outstanding. The passengers -- mostly but not all Germans -- couldn't have been nicer.

So why wasn't this the River Cruise of a Lifetime?

Four words, from an American woman named Honey Kessler, three days into the cruise:

"Where are the swans?"

Maybe they were honked off by the mountains of scrap metal.

Come on aboard.

The boat

Good boat, the MV Heidelberg. Any complaints anyone had -- and if they had any, I either didn't hear them or they complained in German -- couldn't have had anything to do with the vessel.

It's essentially a luxury barge, long (360 feet) and low, with 54 passenger cabins split among two levels. There were 82 paying customers on our cruise (capacity is 110), which meant by the end of the first breakfast, we were all noddingly acquainted.

It never felt crowded.

Cabins were bigger than I would have guessed from the pictures. Plenty of space in the bathrooms and the best shower I've ever experienced on a vehicle.

There was a hair salon onboard. And a doctor onboard. And the laundry was done at rational prices. Plus there was a sauna and a small gym for the addicted.

No noise came from the engine, except while maneuvering into ports or dealing with locks, the latter kind of entertaining. The only time we knew we were moving was when the shoreline went backward.

One last point: Sometimes barges carrying billions of Volvos would motor by in the opposite direction, generating a huge wake. The Heidelberg didn't even wobble.

The atmosphere

There was no conga line at sail-away and not once did a ship's photographer snap a picture (for purchase later) of couples being cuddled by fake pirates going "arrggghhhh."

There was no belly-flop contest. No art auction. No Heinrich, Heinrich, der Bingo Herr.

Instead?

Quiet time between meals. Cocktails and conversation in the lounge before dinner. Gracious, unhurried dining. No rushing people through after-dinner coffees or cognacs to make room for a second seating. There was no second seating.

Entertainment? Aside from a few merry Belgians breaking into a Charles Azvanour sing-along? Not much.

Most nights, piano music. One evening after dinner, the Crew Choir, including ship's captain Jaroslav Drozdik (who looked like he would have rather been dodging icebergs), sang rollicking sea chanteys for us, accompanied on the accordion by Our Musician Jens.

"There are no big shows on this little vessel here," said congenial Wilhelm Bahrs, hotel director aboard the Heidelberg and the most rollicking of all the choristers. "Some people like activities onboard," Bahrs said. "This is more for people interested in people, art history, music."

Which reminds me: No casino.

The crowd

Older. No question. A fair guess: Three-quarters of the passengers were at least 70. A total of two kids, both boys in their early teens, one Canadian and one Italian and neither with visible iPods -- and this was a July cruise. A few people in their 40s or 50s, maybe, but not many.

Now, I'm trying not to be smarmily ingratiating here, but: The crowd didn't seem old. OK, one woman at our table had a hearing aid that didn't quite work, but we dealt with that with elegance and grace: We shouted at her.

Other than that, this could have been a crowd of extremely polite 30-year-olds, if there is such a thing.

A solid majority spoke German, but all shipboard announcements were in German and English. Art historian Konrad Dittrich presented a Rembrandt lecture first in German, then in English. I attended both. The two groups laughed at the same funny lines. I think.

The food

The best I've had on water -- admittedly in a lifetime sampling that hasn't included some elite cruise lines, but still. ...

Sample entrees: saddle of veal on a morel cream sauce, poached salmon-trout and grilled shrimp on rice noodles and ginger sauce, roasted duck breast on grape sauce with almond croquettes. Lunches so good you almost didn't mind coming back to the boat to eat (and we'll get to that, too). All wonderful and all presented with appropriate gourmet squiggles.

Beverage prices were fair -- about $3.50 for a beer, twice that for a mixed drink. Once the servers were trained (which didn't take long), favored cocktails were waiting for you as you arrived at your table.

There were three formal nights. Yes, three. But for the guys we're talking suits or jackets, not tuxes; one gentleman's tie was a Western bolo (the same one all three nights!) and no one smacked him.

Breakfast, daily, was better than the familiar European continental buffet, plus scrambled eggs and breakfast meats, plus eggs or waffles prepared to order, plus endless and very good coffee.

A memorable after-dinner treat one night: an assortment of herring, including the really good stuff, and free German beer.

Midnight snacks happened at 10:30 p.m. and, except for Herring Night, were token -- and that was OK.

No ice sculptures. That was OK too.

The ports

Aye, the ports. There's the rub.

For American travelers, after the typical First European Experiences knock off London, Paris, Rome and even Amsterdam, there's a next wave of worthwhile places, and Brussels and Brugge are certainly up there. Antwerp is cooler than you probably think. Delft is a nice surprise, with or without porcelain. Just try to find gentse stoverij anywhere but Ghent. Never heard of Middelburg before this trip and really liked the Dutch town. Rotterdam? Any city that recovered from a World War II flattening merits attention.

Problem was, much of the time the Heidelberg didn't dock near the good stuff. Instead of tying up near the historic town centers, we pulled into warehouse districts or lumberyards miles from ... well, miles from the swans.

Honey Kessler and husband Bob had done a Deilmann river cruise the year before, on the Rhine and Moselle. Lots of pretty towns and castles to go with the comforts and care that Deilmann cruises provide -- and that brought them back to this one.

"We thought this would be comparable," Bob Kessler said when this was over, "but it wasn't quite. We expected to see swans, the peacefulness of the Moselle River. We didn't know the upper Rhine was so different, so industrial."

Indeed. The various canals that connected the destinations weren't always sweet waterways lined with pastures and cattle and orchards and old men fishing off the banks. There was some of that, and when it was there, it was beautiful.

But there were long stretches featuring mountains of scrap metal and dead cars and stacks of shipping containers. Petrochemical plants. That sort of thing.

Dick Parmeter, a retired professor of forest pathology at the University of California, Berkeley, and his wife, Anita, had a fine time on the cruise overall.

"This was just delightful," said Anita -- but her husband, though also enjoying the experience, had the same quibble as the Kesslers.

"In my imagination," he said, "there'd be tying up at quaint little towns along the way, getting out and walking, communing with the culture and nature. This cruise stopped at big towns' dock areas where there really was not comfortable walking."

The distance factor brought another downside: By necessity, because the docks were remote, we were required to rely on paid excursions to reach most towns and cities. The morning tours returned to the Heidelberg for lunch; afternoon tours, which departed soon after the boat's lunchtime, returned in time for dinner.

Because we usually sailed either right before or during dinner, anyone who dared stay in town to eat literally missed the boat. Result: It was almost impossible to savor the local cuisine.

To be in Belgium and not at least sample the country's fabled frites (french fries, like no others) or beers is like touring Italy without trying the pasta. But Brussels, one of the continent's great centers of gastronomy, was 30 miles from our dock. The Brussels excursion was excellent. But. Not even time for a waffle.

Maybe next trip.

And maybe we'll even see a few swans.

Alan Solomon writes for the Chicago Tribune.

IF YOU GO

Peter Deilmann Cruises offers multiple itineraries covering many of the major rivers in Europe. Among the familiar: the Rhine, Moselle, Seine, Elbe, Danube and Oder. Several itineraries combine rivers and other waterways. Still others combine the cruise with land transport (motor coach, train) to inland destinations.

Prices vary by length of the cruise, season, boat and, in some cases, stateroom size and location.

Brochure prices for the seven-day Amsterdam-Amsterdam cruise on the MV Heidelberg described in the story begin at $1,445 per person, double occupancy (subject to change; some port fees not included).

Other offerings: 14-night cruises aboard the MV Casanova between Amsterdam and Budapest, Hungary, with stops in Cologne, Wurzburg and Munich in Germany and Vienna, Austria, start at $3,530; an 11-night cruise aboard the MV Casanova out of Munich with visits to Romania's Bucharest plus Budapest and Vienna begins at $3,140; a seven-nighter on the Seine between Rouen, France, and Paris, from $1,525.

For more information, call your travel agent or contact Peter Deilmann Cruises at 800-348-8287 (the U.S. office is in Alexandria, Va.) or deilmann-cruises.com.

[ALAN SOLOMON]

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