Overview

Written 26 March 16 April 2023

Here's the map of the first leg of our cruise, 26 March through 4 April on the Viking Freya (pronounced FRAY-uh).

Here's the map of the second leg, 4 April through 13 April, on the Viking Einar (pronounced EYE-ner).

The first question we always get is "Which river did you cruise on?" Well, as you can see, the main river reaching the sea in this region is the Rhine, but it ramifies, merges with other rivers, has had canals dug to and from it from all directions, and is generally confusing. At times, we were on the Rhine, the Nether Rhine, the Maas (Meuse), the Schelde, the Ij, the North Sea Canal, the Amsterdam-Rhine canal, the Lek, the Waal, the Noord, and a couple of lakes (the Markermeer and the Ijsselmeer). And to complicate things farther, the ship did not actually follow the red lines on the maps. For example, to get from Amsterdam to Hoorn, we did not cruise north on the Markermeer—instead, we followed a canal (too small to show on these maps) west from Amsterdam to the North Sea, turned north, around the horn, as it were, then back south to Hoorn. So for a while in the night, we were on the North Sea—our river captain was licensed to do that, so long as he stayed within 25 miles of the coast.

So at any given time, it wasn't necessarily easy to know just what waterway we were on!