Danibe River and Rhone cruise scenery compared to Rhine?

There are a couple of different cruise itineraries we are considering. These are on the Danube or the Rhône . The only other river cruise we have done was on the Rhine, which had some very nice scenery, and we didn’t pass too many industrial areas. We love nice scenery and towns with an old look.

I know many of you out there have done all of these rivers and would be interested to hear which you thought had the nicest scenery?

Thanks for any replies.

Have done all 3. Posted lots of pics from Rhone (2015) and Danube (2016) cruises in my reviews. Links below in my signature.

All 3 of these rivers have nice and interesting scenery in numerous places along the way, and pretty old towns. We enjoyed all of the cruises.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

I have done the Budapest to Passau Danube itinerary on Ama. The first night there is a sail around to pass all the beautifully lighted buildings and bridges in Budapest. There is another afternoon of purposely scenic cruising in the Melk Abbey area ( forgive my brain freeze of exact location) which was narrated by cruise director. I don’t recall any industrial areas at all the entire week. Maybe those sections were done at night. Highly recommend Danube

Got2Cruise, I think you mean the Wachau Valley? It's beautiful, even in the pouring rain...

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Got2Cruise, I think you mean the Wachau Valley? It's beautiful, even in the pouring rain...

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Yes! That’s it! I think Durnstein is that day also. A gorgeous sail in.

Thanks for replying and this information! I will have to look up your reviews/pictures, JP and Pat. The answers are what I hoped to hear.

I actually found the Danube to be more scenic than the Rhine, especially the Wachau Valley and the stretch from somewhere between Linz and Passau. A repeat Danube cruise is definitely in our future.

I need to put my links in my signature, so it's easier, but here is my trip report, from 2 years ago.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2352114

Robin

Glad to read your review and get your input on these rivers. Like you, we always add land time onto the ends of our ocean cruises or the one river cruise we have taken. (Most of the time we rent a car,however, as it allows us to stop wherever/whenever we want and to tweak our itinerary if we want to. Plus not so much sleeping around with bags. I did all of the driving in Germany, Switzerland and Austria last year when we did our Rhine cruise.) What is different for us now is my husband had a medical issue three years ago that has greatly impacted his mobility and curtailed active and athletic pursuits. That is one reason why scenery is so important because it is easy for him to sit on the deck and watch the world go by or hang out there when the tour is over and I am not ready to reboard yet. Thanks for replying.

Leaving Amsterdam, the first two days seem industrial. Interesting to see how much is transported by barge, but not scenic. It of course gets better after that, but we did prefer the upper Danube for scenery.

Past Budapest what was interesting is just how less busy the river got, the number of boats really dropped down.

One section of the Main canal was amazing, it seemed so narrow, it was hard to believe a boat our size (Viking Longboat) was just gliding along, minimal wake, so quiet. This was late June, so early sunrises. There was just one other person up, it was about 0430, we both sat with our coffee for over 90 minutes. It looked like we were in peoples back yards. I think it was just upstream of Nuremberg. Beautiful.

We've done the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel and the Danube from Budapest to Passau. Both Viking river trips were wonderful but we thought the Danube was considerably more scenic, particularly with regards to variety. The Rhine has lots of castles, mostly in ruins. Castle. Castle, Castle. Interesting but not a huge variety of architectural styles or different types of vegetation.

The Danube has the beautiful scenic valley as other people have mentioned. It also seemed to have a wonderful variety of towns along the way. It visited more different countries and the historic towns were more often located within an easy walk of where our boat was docked that when we were on the Rhine. On the Danube it seemed like either the towns we visited had not been destroyed in a war or had at least been rebuilt so that they looked the same. Budapest was incredible with breathtaking architecture (particularly when seen at night! Wow!) but then we also visited some lovely quaint villages. Quite the range. Our Danube cruise also included the option to take an (included) optional excursion to Český Krumlov in the the Czech Republic. This World Heritage Site was the highlight of a trip that had many, many wonderful experiences. The town is located on a different river so it was a bus ride to get there. That was actually interesting as it gave us a chance to see more of the area. The town is wonderful and it includes a castle (not in ruins!) with a moat where bears live. The town is very well preserved and the pedestrian-only nature of the inner city helped to preserve the feeling that we had been transported to a different time.

I can't remember really going through any industrial areas on the Danube although of course the boat did a lot of traveling at night. There were a few industrial buildings on the Rhine but not a lot.

Good luck with your trip planning!