We landed in Zurich and stayed one night there. The next day we moved to Basel which is where the…read moreRhine River Cruise begins in Switzerland. I booked both hotels on line and even though I inputted Basel, once we were ready to change hotels I found out that our hotel was actually in Lorrach which was in Germany. Hey! What? Fortunately the reviews comforted me since previous cruise goers also stayed in that town and it wasn't too far away and very easy to get to. This station was directly across the street from our hotel. Awesome! The big plus was our hotel gave us transportation vouchers we could use to get back to Basel the next morning. The best and worst of it? The station had an elevator from the station platform to the street level. Always travel light...we never learn. If it had been any other day but Sunday, I would have been an ecstatic camper. Why? Take a walk into the town... keep walking and you see so many charming photo ops. There are LOTS of really nice quality clothing stores and even better SHOE stores with really nice and comfy styles and colors. Only hitch? ALL the stores are closed on Sunday. DANG! The huge and packer ice cream, dessert cafe was open. Who knew people here loved ice cream in all shapes and sizes at 4:30 in the afternoon? The one woman who spoke English told us there was a good Greek Restaurant which would be open at 5 pm. She pointed down the street to the awning. Yes, we had a nice dinner and an even yummier baklava then returned to the hotel in darkness. Thank goodness for this tiny German train station which afforded us safe and easy transportation plus a wonderful window shopping experience

We recently took the Viking Rhein River Cruise from Amsterdam to Basel…read more We arrived several days early and were able to visit some of the wonderful museums in AMS, including the Van Gogh and RijksMuseum, which we would highly recommend. Having these few extra days also allowed us to get orientate to the city and reset our internal time clocks. We found the Viking River Cruise to be wonderful. We went with another couple and signed up for almost all of their excursions. We found all the prices to be reasonable and the sights to be very interesting. We started our day eating a light breakfast on board and then grabbing lunch locally, before heading back to our boat, the Viking Gersemi for dinner. Here is a brief Itinerary... Day 1 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands Day 2 - Kinderdijk, The Netherlands Day 3 - Cologne, Germany Day 4 - Koblenz & Rüdesheim, Germany Day 5 - Speyer, Germany Day 6 - Strasbourg, France Day 7 - Breisach, Germany Day 8 - Basel, Switzerland Viking describes it as: "Explore one of Europe's best-loved rivers, the Rhine. Discover the turreted fortresses, grand cathedrals, historic cities, medieval towns and spectacular scenery of the Middle Rhine--a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Taste the region's renowned white wines, the roots of its terraced vineyards reaching back to Roman times. Savor the various culinary traditions of Alsace." I cannot say enough nice things about the folks who worked for Viking on this cruise. From our Gersemi Hotel Manager Nebo, to all the staff and servers and Andrew our Cruise Director, everyone was spectacular and we never heard the word: no, or the phrase: we cannot do that. They were all exceptional. BTW, there are both pre and post cruise extensions, which means more days to discover your embarkation or disembarkation city, or grab a TGV train to Paris, as we did. Five Stars of fun.

We departed Phoenix,AZ on July 12, 2022, bound for a Viking Grand European River Cruise boarding in…read moreBudapest, Hungry on the Viking Aegir. We are very experienced cruisers with 9 Viking cruises for myself and 12 for my spouse. Upon arrival we were greeted by Viking representative at the Budapest airport and boarded a bus telling us they had called the ship, and someone would be there to greet us. Arriving at the dock the bus driver opened the luggage door and not speaking English motioned for us to take our baggage. 2 Ships were tethered together and not knowing which one was ours and about 20-30 steep stairs and a gangway we had to manhandle the bags down the stairs, not one Viking rep was to be seen. After finding our ship the Customer Service desk said they didn't know we were coming and made no effort to find anyone saying it was time for dinner. We soon found this lack of empathy was to be repeated over the next 2 weeks on 2 different ships and crews. Our luggage was lost by the airlines, as was 10% of the ship's passengers, it didn't seem much effort was being put into help to locate it. If effort was being made, they did not convey any information to the passengers. Due to low water levels, we were told we may need to change ships halfway through the trip in Nuremberg. We thought maybe this would be good as the staff seemed so inexperienced, dinner would take 2-3 hours because of lack of staff and experience (how wrong we were). Sure enough we did change ship to the Viking Embla after 2 days in a hotel with mediocre food. From the first day there was confusion when tour buses didn't arrive or arrived late. Our tours consisted of abbreviated trips because we were always late and due to lack of personnel, we often drove around the countryside oblivious to what we were seeing. I felt we had booked a bus tour rather than a river cruise, because so much time was spent driving around. Daily schedules were never correct with many event cancellations, confusion was the rule of the day. Once we were on the second ship the air conditioning did not work in the public spaces and the crew would never offer any explanation and dinner for 3 days was excruciating. We never saw any of the officers except the Captain for about 45 seconds when he told us we can freeze now as the air was fixed (he wasn't a people person). The staff was in the same condition as the first ship in that they were shorthanded, inexperienced, and overwhelmed. Several of the staff have to be commended especially the cruise director who devoted himself 150% with absolutely no help from the ship staff or it seemed Viking Headquarters, who seemed to parcel out needed information only after desperation set in. He was a one man show and desperately needed an assistant.

Very nice train station indeed! Cool shops and connects to many other sites in Switzerland!read more

This is an excellent train station right in the city center. Basel is a great city known for its…read moreworld class art museums and also their pharmacies companies like Roche and Novartis. Anyway, there's plenty of retail shops in the train station from Migros (one of the staple groceries in Switzerland, but they don't sell alcohol), to Laderach Swiss chocolate, to a really good beer shop I think it's called World of Beers and you guessed it they have a really top notch selection of international beers!

We booked a shopping daytrip with a Bus to Milano through this agency (used the online form to sign…read morein). Very easy, very quick and got our trip confirmed fast. Communication was great throughout and also the staff on the phone (we had a question regarding where the bus will leave) was friendly and helpful. The trip to Milano only cost us 55 CHF per person, which is more than reasonable, a lot cheaper than by train and also more convenient. There are several pick-up points from Basel to Lucerne where you can hop on the bus (and get dropped of later that night). Easy in, easy out. Professional and friendly drivers. There are two of them, in case one gets tired or for safety reasons. You also can purchase some drinks on board for fair prices. The trip took only about 3 hours and was nice and smooth. Bus was perfectly on time (at 6.25 in the morning) and also left on time. A really good experience with Born Travel. Surely will use their service again.

Great location. The food is not bad and the prices are fair. We'll probably be back here.read more

We really enjoyed our train ride aboard the TGV Lyria. We took the route from Zurich to Paris, and…read morehad a very quiet and comfortable ride. The whole trip took about 5 hours (with a few stops here and there to pick up/drop off more passengers). The train leaves the station at a rather slow pace, but once you get into the open road, it really picks up speed. There is a monitor in the train car that tells you how fast you are going. I think the fastest we got up to was 316 km per hour (almost 200 mph!) On board, there is a café car with sandwiches, beer, soda, coffee, and some other snacks and drinks. There is also a rack above the seats for smaller carry- on bags and items, and a large rack area in the middle/front door-areas of each car where you can put your larger luggage. I think we may have had a newer model train, because the seats and the interior were both very clean and colorful/modern. The seats (at least the two that we were at) had power sockets, cup holders, reading lights, tray tables that fold down, and one ingenious part of the seat design - the seats have a small notch on the back of them to restrict how far back you can lean into the person behind you! It still offers quite a bit of pitch, but does put a limit on how much you can disturb the tray table of the passengers behind your seat. I thought that was great! On our trip back to Zurich from Paris, we had a group of school students join us in our quiet car (about 40 young students coming back from a summer trip with all of their band instruments) so it was a little less relaxing, but that is nobody's fault. Just bring headphones and take a nap or enjoy the view as it passes by!

The "Train à Grand Vitesse" was a revolution in train travel for Europe when it was introduced…read morenearly fifty years ago. Lyria TGV is the French-Swiss train line. It became even better, when SNCF's double-decker Lyria TGV was rolled out and the prices made it even more affordable for rail travel. For us retirees and for about $150*, we could go First Class from Switzerland to Paris in three and a half hours. Nice. I have attached the TGV service map to give you some idea of where to can travel throughout France and Europe. The German system ICE (Inter-City Express) also travels into and out of France and has a similar network. See service maps attached. Most European train stations are located in the center of the city. So no schlepping from a large airport several miles away to the city center. Btw, almost all European airports have a train into that very same central station. So you'll be traveling by rail no matter how you get there. LOL Oh yes, there are always several food options and Magazine/Newspaper stands, which also have carry-on food items available for your trip. It's absolutely a better, more relax way to travel. * Booked online several months ahead and prevailing currency conversion.