Panorama Bistro: Danube Menu

The Avalon team host a “Panorama Bistro Food Tasting” for a small number of guests, and having greatly enjoyed participating last week, we signed up again.  

The food is delicious and sitting in the front of the boat with 12 people in total creates a very special dinner party atmosphere- with three people to look after us, and goodness knows how many in the galley!

Here's the menu, with the photos I took:

Starters

Smoked Trout Fillet

Waldorf Salad

Basil Praline (tofu)

Schnitzel (we were sailing into Vienna!)

Soup

Goulash Soup - hat tip to Austria again

Main Dishes

Beef Roulade (certain men had two of this)

Fillet of Pike Perch

Artichokes

Desserts

Malou

Austrian Apricot

Bright Chocolate

Cheese plate

All with wines and coffee/tea etc

On the River: Day 4 Rudesheim

River Cruise

Day 4 Rudesheim, Germany

After our journey through the Rhine Gorge and lunch we docked at Rudesheim, a wine-making town with about 10,000 people living there. Most of my notes for this stop have been posted here. This is a place that sets out to welcome tourists and everyone we encountered spoke English well.

We enjoyed our few hours there and could happily have stayed much longer and explored more.

Back on the boat we had signed up for the first of the Bistro Food tasting meals. A small group of passengers sit together upstairs and eat many tiny samples of local food the chef has prepared. They offer more if you like it, but there is already so much to taste that you would struggle to have seconds.

A sample of what we ate follows below- recorded more for the memory of local food from the Rhine than a foodie guidebook! Not recorded are the cheeses and the wines.

Notes were supplied daily by Isabel, the Cruise Director, to keep us informed and on time. Click on the links below to open and read.

City Overview

Daily Programme

On the River: Day 4 Rhine Gorge

 River Cruise

Day 4 Rhine Gorge, Germany

With Sally, a teacher from Wairarapa, NZ

One of the benefits of travelling in this way are the many extras included. On Day 4 we travelled through the Rhine Gorge and our camp mum (Cruise Director) brought us a live commentary over the speaker system as we glided by romantic castle after castle. So from the comfort of our deck chairs, with supplementary notes and cameras in hand, we were able to absorb the history and significance of what we were seeing. What a privilege.

This was a photographer’s delight and certainly an ABC (Another Blimmin Castle) segment of the journey. I have embedded the map I made of the locations below and will save most of the photos for the pinpoints on it. One of my favourite places had to be the Mauseturm (Mouse Tower) with it’s fairytale story which can be read here.

The significance of this water way and the way the rulers in these castles use their location to demand taxes and tolls from people who needed to use it became apparent as we travelled through the gorge.

And like everywhere we went in Europe, the Romans seemed to have been there first!

Notes were supplied daily by Isabel, the Cruise Director, to keep us informed and on time. Click on the links below to open and read.

Rhine Gorge Overview

On the River: Day 3 Cologne

River Cruise

Day 3 Cologne, Germany

This was our first extended period of sailing during the day and we really enjoyed it.  Being on a river meant no waves and no splashing so although our cabin was almost at water level we could open the sliding doors right up without ever getting wet. It was extremely peaceful in our cabin with the doors folded right open and the countryside gliding by. 

We divided our time with sitting on the top deck where a 360 degree view was to be had.

The slow pace and opportunity to read, relax and sunbathe was welcome. The endless supply of food was a guilty pleasure. I located the fitness centre and realised that a reduced number of passengers combined with the demographic profile of most guests meant there would be a high chance of finding free machines to use to counteract the eating!

At afternoon tea time we made landfall in Germany. Our first experience of arriving in a country without having to pass through border controls and homeland security procedures and we loved it.

This was also the first city we had arrived at by water and we all were captivated by the sight of the Cathedral on the horizon. We were to see many more sights like this, but the towering gothic cathedral in Cologne is impressive and it is easy to see why it is Germany’s most visited monument.

We docked close to the chocolate museum and joined our tour group. While the guide was hugely knowledgeable we discovered the pace was sedentary and the tour did not include entering any of the buildings we passed. 

After a while peeled off and went on a self guided tour of the cathedral, followed by a walk through the main shopping streets. Locating the place where 4711 Eau de Cologne began was a highlight. 

We stopped at the Roman Pretorium, which in modern times is the Town Hall of Cologne.  The sight of a bridal party caught my eye and it was hard to resist being nosey. What a setting for wedding photos! We only got to look at the buildings from the outside, but a search on the internet shows that it would be easy to spend hours exploring inside.

Those who went on the Jewish heritage tour came back saying it was sobering but they were very pleased they went.

After dinner the first of the local entertainers we were to experience came onboard; “Groove Band”. They did their groove thing and then departed at 10.30pm as we were about to set sail for Rudesheim.

Notes were supplied daily by Isabel, the Cruise Director, to keep us informed and on time. Click on the links below to open and read.

City Overview

Daily Programme

Cathedral Notes

More Cathedral Notes

On the River: Day 2 Amsterdam

River Cruise

Day 2 Amsterdam in the Netherlands

We were out bright and early in the morning for the first group activity - a guided tour of the canal system. We were taken by bus to the smaller canal boats and set of on a hour of fascinating viewing of the houses and houseboats from the water. 

We were amused that our tiny canal boat had a dunny onboard, but we were to discover that it was part and parcel of cruise outings!

Our boat was mostly enclosed by a perspex top, which was fine for looking out but not so great for taking photos. 





My companion climbed up on the seat at one stage and got some great shots through the roof opening. 

The boat driver was not happy and the tour guide translated something about tourists, whacked heads and the many low hanging bridges.

These two photos give an idea of photography inside the boat, standing up, AND the height of the bridges!

At the conclusion of the tour we were wising up to the speed at which our group travelled and elected to find our own way back to the boat on foot rather than take the bus. We enjoyed more time wandering through town. We walked past Anne Frank’s house and saw the lines of people waiting to go inside and kept going. It was here we first noticed the pulley systems under the roofs on the outside of houses and saw them in action. To get goods inside these narrow tall buildings people lifted them up and brought them in through the windows. We saw furniture, building supplies and shopping disappearing into houses as we walked around.

We made it back to the boat for lunch and while some went on more guided tours Russell took one of the bikes on board and headed out into the countryside via the bike-on, bike-off ferries which take people over to the north shore for free.  He greatly enjoyed this perspective of Amsterdam.

I chose to go for a 6km joggle along the Rhine canal. It was a treat to be out in the sun and to have a chance to see how the locals go about their lives. One of the things we had remarked upon was the way the buildings were so narrow and I stopped to take a picture of this modern building which I’m not sure I would enjoy living in.

On my return I sent my first parcel post home. The grand central train station was over the road from where our boat was berthed and housed a post office. A kind person there helped me figure out what to do. I bought a box, took it back to the boat, packed it with Winter work clothes which we thought we wouldn’t need any longer, took it back to the post office and sent it on its way. (*update - it was safely home to NZ in a week!)

We were back on board for the 4.45pm sailing out of Amsterdam and one of our fellow passengers took a photo of us as we stood on the sun roof enjoying this much anticipated moment.  We were amazed by how quietly and efficiently the boat slipped out into the canal and headed for Germany overnight.

Notes were supplied daily by Isabel, the Cruise Director, to keep us informed and on time. Click on the links below to open and read.

City Overview

Daily Programme

On the River: Day 1 Amsterdam

River Cruise

Day 1 Amsterdam in the Netherlands

Zurich Airport

This was the much anticipated embarkation day of the Avalon River Cruise and we set out from our Hotel in Bern, Switzerland at 4.30 am to walk to the train station. We discovered it was not easy to break out of the hotel at that time of morning as the 24 hour desk service was sleeping in the office out the back. Break out we did and got ourselves onto a train headed to Zurich Airport and from there a plane to Amsterdam.

On arrival in Amsterdam we took a shuttle bus to the boat meeting point at a hotel and were able to check our bags in, but embarkation was not until 4.00 pm so we had plenty of time to walk around the city. First stop was lunch and we found a great spot beside a canal. We had got used to  people smoking all around us as we ate in France and Switzerland, but this time the smoke had a different flavour. Welcome to Amsterdam!

We clocked up a few k’s walking the streets, visiting the markets and taking in the sights. We had noticed on the shuttle coming in that it was not easy for the driver to negotiate the crowded streets as all the rights seemed to be with the cyclists. Once we were on foot sightseeing we learnt real quick that pedestrians who don’t look where they are going are going to get run down by cyclists!

We were right at the front of the queue to embark at 4pm - mostly because we had walked to the ship whereas most of the passengers had waited for the coach at the hotel about 500 metres down the road to transport them there. Little did we know that this was an indication of the physicality of the two weeks ahead!

After nearly four weeks of travelling we were very pleased to discover our bags lined up in our cabin and unpack and stow our suitcases for a while. We were in the lap of luxury, and even more so because the boat was only half full. It was designed to carry around 160 passengers and there were only 80 of us, so lots of room to move and sit and twice the attention from the service crew.

We stayed in port overnight, and people were free to come and go as the boat was tied up in a very handy downtown location. As long as we took a leave pass so they knew we were not on the ship.

Notes were supplied daily by Isabel, the Cruise Director, to keep us informed and on time. Click on the links below to open and read.

City Overview
Daily Programme