#MyVikingStory

We had an incredibly smooth 9 hour flight from Vancouver to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, with good food, beer, wine, decent leg room and superb in-flight entertainment and service – all in economy!

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Our first surprise of the journey was that, despite my most efficient packing, we had to check our carry-on bags because Lufthansa’s weight limit for a carryon is only 8kg (17.6 lbs). The last 2 times we flew internationally, on Westjet in May from Mexico and on Air Canada in October from Morocco, the limit was 10kg (22 lbs), which is the standard we’ve been using for years, even on international carriers like Lufthansa and IcelandAir.

We do worry a bit about lost luggage, but a new feature this trip was the issuance of trackable electronic baggage tags sent directly to our email addresses. Included were links (not in the screen shot) to report lost/damaged bags, should we need them.

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Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) serves Germany’s fifth largest city and is the main hub for Lufthansa. It is the busiest airport by passenger traffic in Germany and is also the busiest airport in Europe in terms of cargo traffic. The airport has four runways and two passenger terminals and can handle up to 65 million passengers per year.

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With that kind of traffic, customs lines can be really long, but surprise #2 today was a good one: a Viking rep met us at our arrival gate and escorted us directly to the head of the customs line and safely to our connection gate. There we had a relaxing couple of hours smelling the fresh baked goods available everywhere (too bad we’d just had a hearty breakfast on the plane) and in my case drinking the first of what will likely be many “Milchkaffee” this week (literally a “milk coffee”, but more like a macchiato) before boarding a delayed Lufthansa Cityline commuter plane for the short hop to Basel. We landed just after 2 p.m. local time (24 “clock” hours after leaving Vancouver, but really “only” 16 hours of travel time). As promised, our bags were there to meet us!

We were scheduled to board the Viking Einar in Basel and almost immediately go on our first tour – the city’s beautiful Christmas market – at 5:00 p.m.

Unfortunately, two days ago we received this urgent email from Viking:

As you may be aware, the Rhine River is currently experiencing high water levels. As a result, your ship will be unable to reach its regular embarkation port in Basel. You will instead embark in Strasbourg, France (85 miles) on an identical sister ship, the Viking Sigrun. Like the Viking Einar, the Viking Sigrun is a state-of-the-art Longship, featuring all the same comforts and style as the rest of the Viking Longship fleet. She will be ready to greet you at the same time and place and also has a warm and welcoming staff who will be delighted to have you as a guest.

There’s been a LOT of rain along the Rhine in Switzerland and Germany in the past few weeks (more is predicted during our trip), so this was not a total surprise.

Just a couple of weeks ago Reuters reported that “High water (along the Rhine) means vessels do not have enough space to sail under bridges and the blockage prevents vessels sailing to Switzerland. Shipping on northern sections of the river is operating normally including the important points of Duisburg, Cologne and Mannheim.”

That bodes well for the rest of our trip heading north. We can only hope there won’t be more ship changes necessary along the rest of the route, but even if there are we won’t worry about it. Viking has years of experience navigating the Rhine, and has transferring passengers between ships down to a fine art (as we learned last year when low water levels due to an unusually dry summer were our issue between Regensburg and Passau).

Basel would have been our first visit to Switzerland, where my particular German accent would finally have sounded right at home. My mother spoke Hoch Deutsch (high German), my grandmother and our relatives of her generation spoke a Swabian dialect, and my dad and his side of the family spoke a combination of Prussian German, northern German (Lower Saxon), and Plattdeutsch. The result of that mixture, and the more recent influence of spending time with my Niedersächsisch (Lower Saxon) cousins has apparently resulted in me sounding Swiss – something I had confirmed by the Swiss couple we met in Mérida Mexico last winter.

As it turned out, all we saw of Switzerland was Basel’s airport and customs check area.

We finally reached our longship just after 4 p.m., with just enough time to unpack before heading to the lounge for our safety drill and ship orientation. We met our Dutch Captain, our Romanian hotel manager, and our Executive Chef, and learned that of the 182 passengers on board there are 160 from the USA, 14 from Australia/New Zealand, 6 from the United Kingdom … and just TWO Canadians (yup, us!).

Exhausted and hungry, we headed for the dining room, where we shared a table with a very interesting trio from Orlando Florida.

The Regional Specialties Menu option tonight was Schweitzer Wurstsalat (Swiss sausage salad of marinated cucumbers, Emmental cheese, red onions, and ham), followed by Zürich Geschnetzeltes (sauteed veal slices with a creamy mushroom sauce) and Potato Rösti, and a delicious dessert of Zwetchgenwähe (a warm plum tart in a short crust and cinnamon and almond custard.

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By 9:30 we were more than ready for bed. Tomorrow we head into Freiburg!