Amsterdam is one of our favorite cities. So, coming in a few days early for our Tulip Time cruise was okay by us, and as we mentioned, the Hotel Jakarta Amsterdam was a great home base. Having explored the city and many of the major attractions on previous visits, we took a very…
The Hotel Jakarta was the Amsterdam hotel included in our Gate 1 Travel Tulip Time Cruise package. We often price-shop before booking an early-arrival hotel. Sometimes we find that extending at the group hotel can be oddly more expensive, and others it’s pretty close. However, as over 65 travelers, we have to look beyond the…
This past April, we took a “Tulip Time” River Cruise. It was one of the things that Mark really wanted to do, and we both really enjoyed our time in Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. There are always several things to consider when booking, from pre- and post-trips to peak-season pricing and,…
So we have finally come to the end of our blog series for our December 2024 river cruise. (Yes, we’re very behind, but there’s a lot to share!) So it’s time to wrap up our experience. We’ll give you the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of our Gate 1 Travel 11-day German Christmas Markets…
After our incredible Farewell dinner, we departed for our final destination, Frankfurt! We won’t lie, by this point in the trip, we were tired of being cold and usually wet. Thankfully, we had a nice day and a little sunshine. We Skipped The Walking Tour We arrived a bit ahead of our schedule,…
Unfortunately, when we arrived in our next port, Wertheim, it was cold, grey, and rainy. Did we mention that, as two guys over 60 who retired in the Yucatan, where the average daily temperature is 79–82°F, cold and rain are not fun for us? Our Walking Tour Our riverboat docked near the edge of…
Sailing from Bamberg, we arrived at Würzburg in the early afternoon. Around 2 PM, we departed by bus for a short walk to get to Würzburg’s Residenz Palace. Our All Aboard time tonight wasn’t until 9 PM, so we had an opportunity to explore the city and especially the Christmas Market at night! We could…
We began our visit with a walking tour of Bamberg’s Old Town. Bamber survived WWII bombings relatively unscathed, preserving its historic character. With over 2,000 timber-framed buildings, cobblestone streets, and baroque buildings, it is a living example of a medieval European city. We fell in love with this cute little shop….
After our rainy visit to Regensburg, we headed to Nuremberg. While we enjoyed our visit, as Mark’s dad would have put it, it was a mixed bag. The Nuremberg Trials After departing the boat, we boarded a bus for a drive across the city of Nuremberg to the Palace of Justice. The Palace of…
We met our ship, the Monarch Queen, in Regensburg, Germany, to begin our river cruise. Regensburg, one of Germany’s oldest and best-preserved medieval cities, is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We began our visit with a walking tour of the old city. If you saw our last blog, ‘The Historic Sausage Kitchen’, you’ll…