Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Europe European River Cruises

I'm not much of a world traveler but would like to take my wife on a trip. My upbringing was strongly German influenced I do most of my hunting with sxs, drillings and combo guns. The river cruises in Europe sound very interesting but there are so many. Where to start? I thought I could get a little impute here.

Large modern metropolitan areas have little appeal to me.

I'm not a drinker, a case of beer will last a couple years at the house but if I indulge in one I prefer something dark and good.

I do like good sausage, dark bread and homestyle meals.

I'm looking at Oct. thru Dec.(maybe Christmas) I'm retired and live in the heart of hunting country and hunt from Oct.-March so taking a couple weeks out of the season is no big deal.

Any bits of advice would be appreciated.

Hi Erich. Hopefully some of our European friends will chime in, but I thought I would open the ball seeing as you are a fellow Washingtonian. I too am not much of a world traveler but have toured Hungary (my wife is from there) and can sing it's praises. The Danube runs right through it as well as splitting the capital city of Buda and Pest. Budapest is hands down the prettiest city I have seen. If you are ever there, the view of the city from Fisherman's Bastion will make your eyes water from the sheer beauty!

The rest of the country is pleasingly (to me anyway) green and rural, interspersed with well thought out towns and villages. Even traveling from Budapest, five minutes out of the city you are driving through farmland. The food is great and plenty of sausages, potatoes, chicken, pheasant soup, boars meat, etc. I don't think you would be disappointed with the food or scenery. In fact we are planning a return visit later this year. I have some additional cities and areas in Hungary I want to visit.

I did a little reading and the Rhine also looks like a popular cruise. This Web page seems to capsulize the different river cruise options and may be of some help: http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1122.

Best wishes to you in planning your trip! The only thing holding me back from more travels in retirement are the indignities of modern air travel (I can only suffer so much nonsense).

Erich

I haven't done a river cruise, but I have lived the past 8 years in Europe. I live in Vienna, Austria right now. Here is a link to a great looking program: http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/c...altz/2014-passau-budapest/itinerary.html

Also Hunting is pretty much year round. Roe Deer Buck just opened this weekend in most of Germany and Austria. I have hunted in Europe since 1998. 15 May we are going from Rams on the Adriatic coast of Croatia. It is not that difficult to get a visitor license either.

Go DAWGS

I'm taking my wife on a Viking River Cruise in May, 2015. We will Cruise the Danube from Budapest to Nuremburg. Will likely take a couple of days and visit Blaser HQ in Isny while we are there.
BuzzB, please tell me about your hunts. My hunting partner and I are Blaser Prostaffers here in the US and are really wanting to experience some European hunting when we are in country next May.

Budapest is awesome, I did a shirt cruise at night 3 days ago and loved it

I'm excited to see it.

I have no personal experience, but some friends had great things to say about the river cruise in Prague that they went on.

Prague River Cruises

My friends did an after dark cruise, and they also had a pretty dang impressive dinner on the boat.

Very beautiful and romantic... could score you some excellent points with the wife!


My friends also went on a guided Segway tour of old Prague, and loved that too.



John

I did Prague last night and think it was not as impressive as Budapest from the river

It is sounding very interesting. Can anyone tell me about the weather in Nov and Dec in the Budapest area? I live in coastal WA(nearly 100" of rain from Oct to April) so we would like to see some sun. My BinL from WI describes duck hunting here on the coast as "Duck hunting in the shower with the cold water turned on"

Any bits of advice would be appreciated.[/quote]

Since your upbringing is strongly German influenced I think you will love the history and learning that comes from a guided tour. My husband and I had the opportunity to see 5 different countries on our cruise down the Danube River.

We traveled in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Chech Republic, and Slovakia. The cruise ship meals were delicious, rooms were very comfortable, and the staff were very polite and helpful. We enjoyed sitting out on the front of the ship and enjoying the scenery around us.

Just walking down the streets and checking out some of their shops was fun. We loved the food and drinks, seeing the zoo and a even riding a subway in Hungary. There was a carnival/fair going on in Austria. We toured the amazing architecture of buildings hundreds of years older than anything over here. The churches there are absolutely incredible. They're always the tallest building in the cities. We took in some night life in Germany and had a great time with the local people. They had places to rent bikes for people who wanted to experience the countries that way.

We were able to go because Mark had earned this trip through his employer for being one of the top insurance salesmen in the nation. It was a trip of a life time.

My parents did this Viking 8 day Rhine cruise a couple years ago and had a very nice time.

Was funny though. A veterans of several cruises they are used to the first day lifeboat drill. The Captain pointed out on this cruise just go to the top deck. It will still be out of the water with the hull on the bottom. The Rhine just isn't that deep!

Any bits of advice would be appreciated.[/quote]

Since your upbringing is strongly German influenced I think you will love the history and learning that comes from a guided tour. My husband and I had the opportunity to see 5 different countries on our cruise down the Danube River.

We traveled in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Chech Republic, and Slovakia. The cruise ship meals were delicious, rooms were very comfortable, and the staff were very polite and helpful. We enjoyed sitting out on the front of the ship and enjoying the scenery around us.

Just walking down the streets and checking out some of their shops was fun. We loved the food and drinks, seeing the zoo and a even riding a subway in Hungary. There was a carnival/fair going on in Austria. We toured the amazing architecture of buildings hundreds of years older than anything over here. The churches there are absolutely incredible. They're always the tallest building in the cities. We took in some night life in Germany and had a great time with the local people. They had places to rent bikes for people who wanted to experience the countries that way.

We were able to go because Mark had earned this trip through his employer for being one of the top insurance salesmen in the nation. It was a trip of a life time.

[/quote]

Since your upbringing is strongly German influenced I think you will love the history and learning that comes from a guided tour. My husband and I had the opportunity to see 5 different countries on our cruise down the Danube River.

We traveled in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Chech Republic, and Slovakia. The cruise ship meals were delicious, rooms were very comfortable, and the staff were very polite and helpful. We enjoyed sitting out on the front of the ship and enjoying the scenery around us.

Just walking down the streets and checking out some of their shops was fun. We loved the food and drinks, seeing the zoo and a even riding a subway in Hungary. There was a carnival/fair going on in Austria. We toured the amazing architecture of buildings hundreds of years older than anything over here. The churches there are absolutely incredible. They're always the tallest building in the cities. We took in some night life in Germany and had a great time with the local people. They had places to rent bikes for people who wanted to experience the countries that way.

We were able to go because Mark had earned this trip through his employer for being one of the top insurance salesmen in the nation. It was a trip of a life time.

[/quote]

To follow up on this post by my sweetie, this trip - while paid for by the insurance company I was and still am contracted with (now as medically retired status) was arrainged, outfitted etc. by Sea Cloud/River cloud adventures. Having been a top 20 in the nation producer several times in my career, I also got to take a Windjammer Cruise (sailing Vessel) in the West Indies put together by the same company. Sea Cloud/River cloud adventures is a German based company with German (but GOOD English Speaking!) crews that just do this stuff RIGHT. Finest rooms, accomdations, food etc. that you can ever even imagine. And when one goes to shore as a Sea Cloud/River Cloud guest, the locals know that you are a successful and well heeled traveler and treat you as such. Quite a wonderful "once in a Lifetime" kind of trip and adventure. I am glad that I got to experience that kind of ultimate luxury and pampering a couple of times in my life. I cannot recommend highly enough Sea Cloud/River cloud for your trip. Might be a bit spendy, but if you can swing it, do it and go with the best. As Sherri mentioned, the Danube trip started in Germany and was just plain amazing from start to finish.

OSU_Sig,
I got my German hunting license in 1998 and have been hunting over here since. I also hunted fort sill a few times when I was there for whitetail and elk. I have hunted in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Rep, Hungary and next week Croatia. I have a Blaser R93 Luxus that I got in 2006 with a Zeiss 3x12x56. Great setup for Europe. May is a good time for Roe Buck and boar are open as well. opening day in Germany is 15 May, in Hungary is 15 April. I will let you know next week how mufflon ram hunting goes in Croatia on the Adriatic. The past year I have been organizing hunts for my international colleagues in Vienna. We have done, Roe Buck, red stag, and wild boar. It has taken me a few years to figure out how things work and I want to ease the pain of some of my friends. I am not a hunting agency, I just have a passion for the outdoors and what to share it. Happy to pass on more info if you let me know what type of hunt you are interested in.

Not the best weather in nov or dec. Expect cold, rain possible snow. Great time for wild boar driven hunts though.

Something else to consider for the cruise timing, speaking of weather: Hungary has a ton of deciduous trees throughout the countryside and I do not remember seeing one fir tree! Would make a great show along the Danube when the leaves start turning color mid to late October or so. The tree thing really stood out to me coming from Washington State where we have the opposite tree thing - a lot of fir trees and comparatively few of the leafy variety.

I went from Amsterdam to Vienna on the Rhine and Danube last November, actually late Oct. to early November. The weather was cool to chilly and overcast a lot of the time but not so cold as to preclude walking around a lot. I mostly wore a flannel shirt and light windbreaker jacket.

My cruise was with Grand Circle and while I can't fault Viking at all, they are a lot more expensive and I can't really see how our Grand Circle trip could have been any nicer. The food was 5 star excellent - our Hungarian chef had been head chef in a 5 star hotel - and the crew was excellent, really the nicest and most accommodating group of young men and women that I've ever seen. We went aboard a Viking ship docked next to us one day and the Viking vessel was a lot more nicely appointed than ours, i.e. they had a crystal chandelier in the main two story lobby where ours didn't, fancier wood and so forth. The rooms may be a bit nicer as well.

But we only stayed in the room to sleep and shower and they were fine for that. Every day we were out and about in some German or Austrian city. Since all of the cities were developed along the river the older medieval portions were right there on the waterfront within easy walking distance.

Anyway, either company would offer a nice cruise but just wanted to recommend GC as a good value if that is a factor.

Thank You everyone, we booked a trip from Budapest to Nurmburg and are very excited. Looking forward to seeing the Frankonia store in Nurmberg and picking up some accessories for my drillings, muzzle covers and slings.

please check out my other thread on the Croatian Ram hunt. I posted pics as well. 2 Rams were taken with my Blaser!

Thanks again for all the info. We just returned from our trip and it was great. The food and accommodations on board exceeded our expectations. For a first timer to Europe I couldn't think of a more relaxed way to see the countries. We were in Budapest, Vienna, Melk, Passau, Regensburg, and Nuremberg. Tours were interesting with great local guides, we even got in a Mozart and Strauss concert at the Vienna Opera House.

The scenery along the river was perfect, The trees were still in their autumn colours. The weather was cool but no rain(a nice change from coastal WA). I saw quite a number of pheasants in the farm fields in Hungary, mallards, Bluebills, mergansers, swans and cormorants along the river. Also saw a small diving duck that was smaller than a teal. I was surprised to see beaver cuttings along the Danube and learned the once thought to be extinct Danube beaver has been reintroduced from a small population found in Moravia. We saw a number of tower hunting stands on the farms in Germany but didn't spot any big game. Even with the cooler Nov. Weather there were fisherman on the banks the whole 500 miles of the river.

I did get to the Frankonia store in Nuremberg and was able to pick up some accessories for my drillings and hunting leashes for my dog. I wish importation of guns were easier they had a number of high condition used drillings in great calibers that just wanted to come home with me.

In all it was a great experience and my wife and I are looking forward to seeing other parts of Europe by river.

Do you have any advise for the cruise you just took? I'll be there in May, 2015.

My only suggestions.

1. Book a day extension to the front of your trip to acclimate to the time change before you get on the ship. There is just too much to see and friends to make to spend time in your state room trying to recover from traveling half way around the world and turning day and night upside down. We spent over 20 hrs. in the air or in airports getting to Budapest.

2. Casual dress is the rule, you can leave the tie home. Jeans,shirt and sweater and you'll blend in with half of Europe. Take comfortable/sturdy shoes, you'll be walking on a lot of cobblestone streets and stairs.

3. Try and book you departure as late as possible, it was very hard on us to have to make a 3:45AM shuttle to the airport.

The actual cruise was flawless IMO.

excellent advise. Thanks. I've worked in and traveled Europe quite a bit and am aware of the early mornings.
Thanks again.

Erich, I may have missed it, but what cruise line did you do? also include some other trip details, such as arrival/departure cities, shuttle to/from the boat, etc.

Let me know if you want to go for a Roe Buck or Wild Boar hunt while you are over here. I can help arrange it.