TR: Uniworld Bordeaux River Cruise October 11-18, 2015

Thursday October 8, 2015

My wife and I are going on a river cruise for the first time for our 23rd wedding anniversary. We've cruised Crystal, Disney, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Celebrity but this is our first river cruise. We're a little anxious about it, as we've found out Bordeaux is somewhat small when it comes to river cruising. You go up one leg, go back, go up another leg, go back. Here's a map of the trip:

We have a pre-cruise in Amsterdam for 2 nights. Tonight we flew direct from Washington Dulles to Amsterdam. At Dulles, we got a free pass to the First Class lounge. Lounges in the US are not nearly as good as in foreign countries, but this one wasn't bad. Here are pictures of the offerings:

Friday October 9, 2015 Amsterdam Pre-Cruise (Morning and Afternoon)

We took a bike tour in Amsterdam this morning. We often take a bike tour after arriving in Europe, as it gets our blood going and otherwise we'd probably go to the hotel room and crash.

I thought these house boats on the canals were cool, especially this contemporary looking one. Our tour guide said one of these boats is 200,000 - 300,000 euros (including registering the boat so you can park in in the canals) and you could get a nice apartment for that, so they don't save you any money, it's more a lifestyle thing (if we lived in Amsterdam we'd definitely go for one of these boats).

And the tour guide said this is the smallest home along the canals. It reminded us of the place from Harry Potter.

After the tour we had lunch at a restaurant called The Seafood Bar. My wife got the moules and frites. This is what she always gets at least once in Europe.

I got the frito misto. We washed the meal down with a bottle of inexpensive Vin de Pays Rose.

The restaurant was next to a square with an outdoor book market.

This would be more appropriately posted on the River Cruising board.