In this video you're going to discover the nine best places to go on a river
cruise. I'm Gary Bembridge of Tips For
Travellers. River cruising is a great way to travel and you travel in small ships,
largely everything's included, including drinks food and excursions - and it's a
fabulous relaxed way of seeing parts of the world. I'm going to talk about the
nine best places to go. First of all the Rhine. This is the most popular river
cruising destination in the world. The river is a 900 mile long river. It starts in
Switzerland and eventually empties into the North Sea and passes through six
countries: Austria, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and
Switzerland. The reason the Rhine is so popular is it is just steeped in
beautiful scenery and phenomenal history. As you pass along the Rhine you pass
fairytale castles, beautiful vineyards. A big part of the Rhine, which you pass
through on a river cruise, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it's called the
Upper Middle Rhine Valley. It's a beautiful part of the world and it's
basically between Rudesheim and Koblentz, and you pass magnificent
castles, beautiful scenery. The Rhine is a great place to go on a river cruise
and there's a huge amount of choice. Now the second incredible River to go
cruising on is the Danube. The Danube is a very long river. It's over 1,800 miles
long and is the second longest river in Europe after the Volga. It passes
through an incredible eight countries. It starts in Germany and ends in the Black
Sea and it passes through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Moldavia and finally the Ukraine. The most popular stretch is between
Germany and Hungary so starting around about Passau and ending in Budapest in
Hungary. On this cruise you see phenomenal scenery, you pass you loads of
locks and you visit fantastic places including Melk where there's an incredible
cathedral, Lintz, Vienna, Salzburg - so really iconic and famous places.
Again many many of the river cruising companies will offer cruises along the
Danube. The next great river to cruise is the Rhone. This is one of
France's most magnificent and mightiest of rivers. The Rhone is perfect for
people who love food and drink, because it passes through really the gastronomic
and winemaking heart of France . On a Rhone cruise you're going to cruise
through places like Burgundy and Provence. You're going to visit places
like the city of Leon, which is the gourmet capital of France. Some of the
historic places visited is the fortified city of Avignon. The reason
though that many people go on a cruise on the Rhone is because of the food and
the wines. The next great river to cruise is the Douro, which will take you through
Portugal and Spain. The Duoro Valley is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This is not as well-known as many of the other rivers. Most of the cruises
will start in Porto and will wide its way along the Duror, normally any back to
Porto. On the Duoro you're go past lots of very
picturesque vineyards and many villages.
The Duoro is really popular with people who either done the Ryan done the
Danube what is the other parts of Europe. My fifth suggestion on one of the
best river cruises in the world is the Loire in France. The reason that this
is fantastic is it's one of the quietest rivers for river cruising. It's a very
shallow river so it's quite difficult to navigate,
so CroisiEurope created a very specific ship which has paddle
wheels on either side to be able to go down the Loire. So what you'll find on
the Loire is CroisiEurope is the only main river cruising company there, and it's
absolutely magnificent because you go to visit incredible Chateau, you see
beautiful scenery, historic towns. It is much less commercial than many of the
other rivers which are very busy. My next suggestion is the Seine in France that
cruises between Paris and Honfleur, which is down on the coast near
the Normandy landing beaches. The Loire is a really great river cruise if
you want to see some of Paris, because often the cruises will include some
time to see Paris at night, you'll get a chance to visit Versailles, you will
go through beautiful French scenery down to Honfleur and particularly if you're
interested in history and the Normandy beaches, there's some great excursions.
There are many options of places to cruise on rivers in Europe, but I want to
take a look at some of the other rivers of the world which I think are amongst
the best for river cruises that you can do. The first of those, and one of the
most popular and growing ones, is the Mekong River.
The Mekong River will take you to Vietnam and Cambodia.
Many of the big European river cruise operators operate on the Mekong. The
three big city highlights include Siam Reap, Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City.
Although many people go on the Mekong River to see the Angkor temples and
particularly the beautiful temple of Angkor Wat. One of the excursions is
normally going to the big sprawling temple at sunrise, and you get to see the
sunrise above the temple and then go and explore it. On these cruises there's lots
of cultural immersion, so a chance to really understand the culture of Vietnam
and Cambodia like visits to markets and, of course, some of the incredibly
beautiful temples. The river cruise boats tend to be slightly smaller than ones in
Europe, a little bit more nimble because the nature of the river. Now my next
suggestion is the Nile. This is one of the oldest forms of river cruising going
right back to the days of the Pharaoh. The Nile is an incredibly long river, it's
over 4,160 miles long. The river cruises on the Nile tends to focus on a
120 mile stretch between Luxor and Aswan Dam and this is really the most
important part of historic Egypt. In Luxor you get to see the Valley of the
Kings and other significant finds, and then you basically cruise down to
the Aswan Dam with great excursions where you can go and see some of the
very significant sites there. The Nile is a magnificent place to cruise. It's very
historic cruising in the beautiful small river cruising boats. The best
time to go, because it gets incredibly unbearably hot in Egypt, is
around about Christmastime so between November through until about January/
February. Another place to go cruising is along the Mississippi River in the United
States of America. The Mississippi River is a magnificent historic River and the
river cruises explore the old history of the south: the Civil
War, slavery and also just taken the beautiful scenery of the old plantations.
For those of you who are fans, you can also on many of the cruises go to Memphis and of
course visit Graceland (Elvis Presley's home). There are two big companies that
cruise the Mississippi which are the American Queen
Steamboat company and the American Cruise Lines and they operate those
big old traditional paddle steamers with the big wheels at the back. Of course
there are many more rivers of the world that you can go cruising, and all the
time companies are finding more and more rivers. It's a beautiful
way to go and see the world. It's quite intimate, the boats by
their very nature are small, it's quite a leisurely approach and most of the river
cruises are pretty all inclusive. So you'll find your accommodation, your food,
your excursions are normally included. It's a great way of immersing yourself
and seeing parts of the world. Those are in my view the nine best river cruises
in the world. If you liked the video I'd love it if you gave a "thumbs up" and a
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