My latest European adventure was a Viking cruise on the Elbe River. I had never had a lot of interest in river cruises. My friend had booked this cruise, and it sounded interesting to me, so I booked it too. What appealed to me most was that it started in Prague with two nights in a hotel and ended in Berlin with two nights in a hotel there. I had been in Prague in December for the Christmas markets and liked the idea of crossing the Charles Bridge in a tee shirt rather than a down coat! Prague has jumped up on my list of favorite cities. We were booked at the Marriot Hotel which is a beautiful hotel, and the location was super. What also intrigued me with this trip was seeing Berlin, which was a city on my bucket list, and it was two-night hotel stay.

In-between the hotel stays in Prague and Berlin, we would be cruising the Elbe River and making stops in some beautiful German cities. Sounds good right? It would have been had Mother Nature cooperated. It had been a winter without snow in parts of Germany and the snow from the mountains feeds the river. There also has been very little rain. When we got to Prague, I found out that it was official, there was not enough water to cruise. Well, what exactly would we be doing? Since there was nothing I could do about this I decided to enjoy Prague as planned and worry about the rest later. And I sure did enjoy Prague!! One should be careful what you wish for. I wanted to “cross the Charles bridge in shirt sleeves”…well, there was record breaking temperatures while I was there. One day I noodled around the city on my own. I was on a mission to find a sunflower door that a friend had brought to my attention on a Prague blog. I checked on the internet and found an address for where this door was and one morning I set out to find it. I love to photograph doors and I wanted my own photograph of this one. It was a bit of a walk, but it was worth it. Along the way I found other doors to photograph too. You can see other door photos in my Blog “Doors of Prague” (July 2025). I did wander around the Charles Bridge taking photos and stopping at the local artist’s stands to look at paintings and handmade crafts. I bought a lovely painting. A great tour one evening was Prague at night. It took us to Letna Hill and the Strahov Monastery for spectacular views of the city. We also saw the Lennon Wall which I had not seen on my first visit to this city.

The first photo is The SunFlower Gate. The next set of photos is The Charles Bridge

Letna Hill

Lennon Wall

My friend had searched the internet for restaurants, and she found two terrific places. One was La Republica (excellent traditional Czech restaurant with a beautiful bar). The other one was La Boca (Spanish and Argentinian tapas!). Both were excellent choices!

After 2 nights in Prague it was time to move on to what was supposed to be a cruise. We were taken to a ship parked on the Elbe. They said we would be bused to most of the places that were on the itinerary. First we were bused to Decin where we spent 2 nights on this first “Houseboat”(my term since we were not going to be cruising) and then we spent 3 nights further along the river in Wittenberg on another boat.

From the first boat location we were bused to Bad Schandau where we went to the national park which was gorgeous.

The next day we bused to Dresden and saw the Zwinger Palace. we toured the museum and saw the Dresden Green Diamond which is a 41-carat natural green diamond which originated in the mines of India. We had lunch at a fun restaurant, Sophienkeller.

It was a beautiful day for clouds in Dresden!

From here we were bused along the river to Wittenberg. Another beautiful city with close ties to Martin Luther. The Lutherhaus is now a museum. You can see here the door where his 95 Theses was “nailed”.

We disembarked the Viking Astrild after 2 days in Wittenberg. We boarded the bus and went to Potsdam where we toured the Cecilienhof Palace which is where the Potsdam Conference of 1945 was held. This didn’t look like a Palace to me. It was more like a lovely Tudor style home that you can find in New Jersey! From here we went on to the Sanssouci Palace which was built by King Frederick the Great as his summer palace. The name in French means “without a care”. He wanted this palace to be strictly for enjoyment!

The first 6 photos are from the Cecilienhof Palace

Sanssouci Palace

We boarded the bus again to head to Berlin. First stop was to walk across the “Bridge of Spies”. This bridge, Glienickie Bridge was the exchange point for spies during the Cold War.

From here we headed into Berlin

We arrived at the beautiful Radisson hotel. My room had great views! Temperatures continued to soar in Berlin. Thank goodness for air conditioning!

I figured a “must do” in Germany would be a beer tasting. The first night in Berlin I went to a beer tasting at the Lemke brewery. The first two were good, the 3rd and 4th tasted like gym socks!!

The next morning was a great tour of Berlin. We went to Checkpoint Charlie and Brandenburg Gate. We saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial was designed by an American architect Peter Eisenman and Buro Happold. There are 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern. It is very moving.

Next was the East Gallery. This is a section of the original Berlin Wall where there are 106 murals painted by international artists. It is AMAZING!

This was a sunset on the Spree River on my last night in Berlin.

All in all it was a very good trip. Aside from the fact that it became a tour by bus it turned out OK. When given lemons you have to make lemonade!! Viking bent over backwards to make this an enjoyable trip and they are giving voucher compensation for the disappointment of no cruise. Since having this experience, I have heard from others that there can regularly be river water problems-either too much water or as in this case, not enough water. So, there are accommodations that have to be made. The sights were beautiful, the hotels were wonderful, the “houseboat” was fine, the crew and Viking employees were fabulous, and I met some really terrific people! In fact, I have already seen one couple when I was in the south visiting friends last week! Always great to make new friends!

Take a look at three other blogs I wrote for this trip- Street Fashion in Prague and Berlin, Doors of Prague, and Doors and Portals in Germany.

Thank you for traveling with me.