Rhine North River Crossing: Guided Bike and Boat Tour

Welcome to Cologne!

This seven-day cruise begins in the spectacular cathedral city of Cologne. A shuttle bus leaves at 2 pm from the main train station in Cologne to the landing stage in Cologne Deutz (included in the price of your trip). Your guide will be waiting to meet you on the ship from 3 pm. You will be able to enjoy a welcome drink with them and your group so you can start to get to know each other. 

The Aqua casts off at 5 pm and will head downstream towards the IJsselmeer, a closed off inland bay in the central Netherlands. If the sun is shining, you can enjoy the trip on the sun deck with a view of the famous cathedral and the steeples of the surrounding Romanesque churches. You will have dinner with the rest of your group onboard.

IJSSELMEER & EDAM CHEESE

The first morning of your trip will be spent onboard the ship relaxing, as it will not reach northern Holland until around noon. Enjoy the sights as you sail through the Netherlands on your way towards Amsterdam. 

You’ll have lunch on board before the ship docks at Hoorn pier, at the gates to the old town. You’ll enjoy a tour of Hoorn on which you’ll see the magnificent gabled houses and the famous market square. Your e-bikes will be waiting for you in the nearby historic Marktplatz and your guide will help set them up to suit you.

Your first bike ride of the tour will head along the coast from Hoorn to Edam, where we’ll find more examples of traditional architecture such as gabled houses, clinker facades and great wooden doors.

Edam is known around the world for its cheese sealed in red wax. You’ll see it being sold in the market square on wooden boards by vendors wearing traditional dress. The route continues for another half an hour to Volendam, Edam’s former port, on the banks of the Markermeer. In the late afternoon, a transfer will pick you up and take you back to the ship, where you will enjoy dinner onboard and another pleasant night’s rest.

BUSY AMSTERDAM & THE NIEUW LAND NATIONAL PARK 

On Day 3, you’ll awake in the province of Flevoland, home to the Nieuw Land National Park, which is entirely man made. We’ll pick up our e-bikes in Lelystad just beside the harbour, and start our first route of the day through the newest national park in the Netherlands.

Spanning 29,000 hectares, it is the largest man-made nature reserve in the world. It is home to a huge variety of flora and fauna, including the white-tailed eagle, horses and red deer. It really is a place where you can be at one with nature. We will cycle west along Lake Markermeer, created just 30 years ago following the construction of a dam. (Its name did cause confusion among locals, as in Dutch, meer means lake, and zee means sea!)

We’ll ride past picturesque villages and green meadows on our way towards Amsterdam, home to over 800,000 bicycles (fietsen, in Dutch), and 1,281 bridges. This city is an endless source of exploration and beauty. No matter how many times you visit, you always discover something new. We’ll have some time to look around on foot before heading back to the ship for dinner and another night’s rest.

MAASHATTAN & THE KINDERDIJK WINDMILLS

After breakfast on Day 4, we’ll enjoy a panoramic cruise through the port of Rotterdam. This is the third-largest port in the world, where the historic Delfshaven, a beautiful harbour built in the 14th century, is now a well-frequented area lined with antique shops, bars and restaurants.

We will disembark here and collect our e-bikes, ready to start our cycle route for the day. Our expert guides will start by telling you a bit about the area and why there are so many windmills in Holland. The windmills in this particular area date back to the 18th century and were built to pump excess water from the polders into the River Lek in order to make the land workable for agriculture. 

We will then cycle along the canals through the beautiful landscape to Dordrecht, which in the Middle Ages was one of Holland’s most important centres for trade. Today, the harbour is lined with tall storehouses and neat merchants’ houses from the 17th century. We’ll then take a short transfer to Kinderdijk and board the ship once again. Once on board, the AQUA will set sail for Ghent in Belgium, our next destination. Dinner will be served shortly.

VAN EYCK’S GHENT ALTARPIECE

Day 5 will start with breakfast onboard before we take you to downtown Ghent for a guided tour of the charming old town. It is a busy and bustling mediaeval market town criss-crossed with canals that give it a very romantic feel. Look out for the Gravensteen, the castle of the counts, that stands imposingly between two tributaries of the Lys river. It is now a major landmark and museum. 

We’ll also get to see one of the most famous artworks in the world when we visit St Bavo Cathedral, the “Ghent Altarpiece” (also called Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) by the van Eyck brothers. No picture can do this masterpiece justice, you simply have to see it in person to appreciate it in all its glory. It really is breathtaking. 

Today’s bike ride will kick off after our guided tour of the town along the River Lys. As we follow the course of this beautiful river, we’ll catch a glimpse of grand elegant houses with large gardens that extend down to the river. In the early 1900s, this beautiful landscape was the inspiration for many famous painters and sculptors. We’ll turn down a canal and head back to Ghent, arriving back at the ship in the afternoon. We will once again have dinner onboard and spend the night on the ship and she sails onto our next location. 

FROM FLEMISH MASTERS IN ANTWERP TO GOTHIC IN MECHELEN

We have two visits planned for Day 6 of our tour. In the morning we will visit Antwerp, home to the largest cathedral in Belgium, the Cathedral of Our Lady, also home to impressive artworks such as The Elevation of the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens.

After visiting Antwerp, we’ll be transferred to the city gates where we will start our bike ride for today. We will cycle through the scenic Belgian countryside on flat streets with little to no traffic. You’ll enjoy a picnic prepared by your guides (included in the price of the tour).

We’ll then enjoy a guided tour of a brickwork museum, where we’ll learn a lot about the history of this region. When we get back on the bikes, we’ll cycle along the narrow canals towards our destination for the day, Mechelen, home to the imposing Gothic cathedral, Saint Romuald. Its tower, although never completed, is 98 metres tall. In the afternoon, we’ll be transferred back to the ship, still moored in Antwerp, where we’ll have dinner onboard.

NIMWEGEN & OOIJPOLDER

Overnight the ship will have sailed onto Nijmegen in the Netherlands. After breakfast, we will get onto our bikes and explore the country’s oldest city, dating back to the Roman Empire. We’ll visit the town and its main sights, before following the course of the River Waal, close to the German border, as it winds calmly through fields and meadowland and beside tranquil villages. 

This will be the final bike ride of our tour, and our destination for today is Emmerich. In the afternoon, we will rejoin the ship in this small town and settle in onboard and it sets sail back to Cologne. Enjoy the final afternoon of our tour with the rest of your group over a coffee and piece of cake. Watch the landscape and riverside towns change as we sail through northern Europe in the afternoon. Enjoy your last dinner and night onboard the A-Rosa Aqua cruise ship.

IMPRESSIONISM IN THE WALLRAF-RICHARTZ MUSEUM. FAREWELL COLOGNE!

The ship will dock in Cologne in the early morning and we’ll enjoy our final breakfast onboard. We’ll then head to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum to see the most extensive collection of paintings from French and international Impressionism and Late Impressionism in Germany, including work by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Our tour ends at 12:30 pm at Cologne Central Station. Your luggage will be delivered here for you so you can start your onward journey.