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The Best Of Austria & Switzerland With Romantic Rhine Booking Dates
10/24/2018 through 09/08/2019
Travel Dates
10/24/2018 through 09/28/2019
Avalon Waterways
Avalon Panorama

This amazing vacation offers the best of both worlds: a land tour of Austria and Switzerland-two of Europe’s most scenic countries-and a river cruise on the legendary Rhine River with stops in France, Germany, and Holland!If you’re a fan of palaces and castles, you’ll enjoy a visit to Vienna, Austria’s Schönbrunn Palace, once the home of the Habsburg family. Stand in awe as you hear the stories of this royal family’s home. And in Switzerland, you’ll enjoy a visit to romantic Chillon Castle, a well-preserved, medieval castle on the shores of Lake Geneva. If spectacular scenery is your interest, you’ll be thrilled with a ride on the world-famous Glacier Express train, where you’ll travel first-class with panoramic windows to admire the thundering waterfalls, impressive peaks, glacial ice fields, and tiny villages on your way to Zermatt, Switzerland. Other scenic highlights include a Danube cruise along the prettiest part of the river on your way to Salzburg; a private boat cruise on the fjord-lake in Lucerne; a scenic drive into the Swiss Engadine, considered the most beautiful mountain area in the world; and more. Some sightseeing highlights include The Sound of Music Parish Church in Mondsee, a walk through the Old Town in Innsbruck, and the Lion Monument and Chapel Bridge in Lucerne.After this land tour of the historical sights, castles, palaces and spectacular scenery, you’ll embark your cruise ship in Basel, Switzerland, for an exciting river cruise along the Rhine River! In Breisach, Germany, find the gateway to Germany’s Black Forest, an area of unrivaled natural beauty, best known for Black Forest ham, cherry cake, and the cuckoo clock. In Strasbourg, France, be amazed by the red-sandstone gothic cathedral with ancient murals and the fascinating astronomical clock. Stroll through the lovely La Petite France district with its quaint shops, delightful bistros, and peaceful waterfront promenade. Visit the ruins of Heidelberg’s castle, towering magnificently over the city, and stop in Mainz for a guided walk and a visit to the captivating Gutenberg Museum. In the charming wine town of Rüdesheim, visit the unique Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum. Holland’s popular, modern capital of Amsterdam, offers world-famous museums and an abundance of restaurants amongst the classic architecture and charming canals. See the treasures of the city on a canal cruise along the elegant grachten lined with homes dating back to the city’s “Golden Age.” A perfect ending to this fabulous land and river cruise adventure!

Included Features:

Day 1 Vienna: welcome to AustriaDay 2 Vienna: guided sightseeing, see the Ringstrasse, Heldenplatz, and visit Schönbrunn PalaceDay 3 Vienna–Melk–Salzburg: Danube cruise and visit to The Sound of Music Parish Church in Mondsee; guided walking tour and dinner at a local restaurant in Salzburg Day 4 Salzburg: day at leisureDay 5 Salzburg–Innsbruck–St. Moritz: walk through the Old Town, see the Golden Roof in Innsbruck; travel to St. MoritzDay 6 St. Moritz–Chur–Täsch–Zermatt: panoramic trip onboard of the Glacier Express train to ZermattDay 7 Zermatt: day at leisureDay 8 Zermatt–Berne: visit Chillon Castle; travel to BerneDay 9 Berne–Interlaken–Lucerne: guided walking tour in Berne, see the Bear Park and enjoy the panoramic view from the Rose Garden; travel to LucerneDay 10 Lucerne: morning walking tour, see the Lion Monument and the Chapel Bridge; private boat cruise and farewell dinner at a local restaurantDay 11 Lucerne–Basel (Embarkation): travel to Basel; onboard welcome reception Day 12 Breisach. Excursion to Black Forest: choice of excursion to Black Forest, or guided tour in ColmarDay 13 Strasbourg: guided sightseeing, visit La Petite France district and the gothic cathedralDay 14 Excursion to Heidelberg. Mainz: guided tour of Heidelberg Castle, see the Great Vat; visit the Gutenberg Museum in MainzDay 15 Rüdesheim–Rhine Gorge–Koblenz: visit Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum in Rüdesheim; special treat; scenic cruise through the Rhine Gorge; guided walk in KoblenzDay 16 Cologne: choice of “Cologne Highlights” walking tour, or Jewish Heritage walking tourDay 17 Amsterdam: canal cruiseDay 18 Amsterdam (Disembarkation): your vacation ends this morning



Amsterdam: A good time! That’s what you’ll have in this beautiful capital of the Netherlands, which feels at once like a 17-century city and a bustling modern metropolis. Famous for its canals and extraordinary museums, Amsterdam is also an intimate city with strangely alluring streets and squares.


Cologne’s great Gothic Cathedral is a magnificent reminder of man’s ability to create exquisite art from stone. Its lacy twin spires and wonderful stained glass never fail to impress. Miraculously, the Cathedral escaped wartime destruction, unlike most of the city. The Old Town attracts visitors with excellent restaurants, lively taverns, bars and boutiques. The pedestrian-only Hohe-Strasse is a shopper’s paradise, and Eau de Cologne toilet water, trademarked 4711 (the former address), is world famous.


Without doubt one of the prettiest towns in Switzerland, Lucerne lies in the heart of the country on the northern end of the famous lake of Lucerne, the Vierwaldstätter See. Dotted throughout with many Renaissance and Baroque fountains, colourful paintings on the gables and commanded by the exquisite wooden bridge, the Kapellbrücke and Wasserturm, the 13th century octagonal water tower, Lucerne’s character is pure charm.

Spectacular views and sights abound from almost every vantage point in and around Lucerne. The heritage of this historic locale and of Switzerland itself is palpable in every landmark. The Old Town Hall – Altes Rathaus – is a fine example of a Renaissance building whilst the Meseggmauer, City Wall, built between 1350 and 1405 stands proud above
the city. A stroll along the quay takes the visitor past the modern health resort and onto the largest and most important Transport Museum in Europe and the only Planetarium in Switzerland. The famous Lion Monument – Löwendenkmal and the Glacier Garden, a geological phenomenon left over from the Ice Age make for remarkable viewing as do the Pilatus, Dietschiberg or Gütsch mountains peaks surrounding the city.

A short drive from town takes visitors to some of the most breathtaking landscapes on earth. A paddle steamer ride around the Viewaldstätter Lake takes in the majesty and scenery of this beautiful area. A short drive will take you to the nearby winter resorts and many more lakes, This is the alpine range in central Switzerland where you will find glaciers, lush forests, verdant valleys and so much more.

You can find it all in Lucerne from theatre and the arts to star-gazing and folkloric festivals. Lucerne is especially lively during Carnival with lakeside celebrations, Rotsee-boat races, and the international horse races. With such variety, a good time is virtually guaranteed in Lucerne.


Rüdesheim is a small, very quaint “Bavarian” village in Germany on the Rhine River. Points of interest include the Asbach Brandy Distillery, Cable-car to Niederwald Monument, Medieval Museum of Torture, a Falconry and many wine festivals throughout the year.


Music in this central Austrian city is not only the grand opera or the symphony in the elegant “festival houses”; it’s also the tunes being played on the 18-th century Glockenspiel high above the Residenzplatz. The focus of much of this musical activity is, of course, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was born here (as no Salzburger will allow you to forget) in 1756, and the city has been taking advantage of its good fortune almost ever since. Mozart’s glorious music is the inspiration
for the several festivals now held in Salzburg each year. Mozartkugeln, little chocolate-coated marzipan balls wrapped in foil, are inescapable. And where else can you plan a trip at the Mozart Travel Agency, watch a movie at the Mozart Cinema, enjoy too many glasses of Mozart Liqueur in the Cafe Mozart, and then find a remedy for your headache at the
Mozart Drugstore?

Even without Mozart, however, the city has many other attractions to fall back on. A survey sponsored by its tourist office recently revealed that the main reason why people come to Slazburg is not for Mozart festivals he has inspired, but rather for the sheer beauty of the city. And Salzburg is beautiful. Wedged comfortably between several small mountains (the Festungsberg and the Monchsberg to the south and southwest, the Kapuzinerberg to the northeast) and split in two by the swift-flowing Salzach River, the city is a marvel of medieval, Renaissance, and baroque design. Salzburg’s profile, punctuated by numerous steeples and domes, is dominated by an enormous fortress high above the city. And from just about everywhere the Alps are visible, providing, as high mountains always seem to do, a heroic background for the
sophisticated elegance of the city’s architecture.

Among the city’s attractions are the Salzburg City of Music, and the City of History and Architecture. Mozart’s birthplace is a well-kept yellow house at Getreidegasse 9 and is really more like a shrine than a museum. The trapping of young Wolfgang’s early life–his childhood violin, his piano, and other memorabilia–are presented in the third floor rooms with an almost religious solemnity. “Mozart’s Cradle Stood Here,” announces a plaque in a corner of one room. Display cases
in another room contain such relics as his silk wallet, buttons from his coat, even a few preserved locks of his hair.

Guided tours of the festival theater complex are usually conducted in German but are worth taking even if you don’t understand a word. Of the three performance halls–the Small and Large Festival Houses and the Felsenreitschule–the last is the most unusual. An outdoor arena with three rows of stone arcades carved into the side of the Monchsberg, it was converted from a 17th-century showplace for horses. Much more modern is the Large Festival House, opened in 1960, with its enormous stage built into the mountain and its 38-ton metal curtain.

Folk tradition, along with the sound of music, remains dear to the hearts of Salzburgers.


The ancient capital of Alsace it is located in the northeast corner of France near the border with Germany. The city has exchanged hands between France and Germany during the World Wars. It is considered to be at the “crossroads” of Europe and is the home of the European Parliment. Visit the Palais Rohan, home of many famous paintings; La Petite France with its ancient structures; the famous Church of St. Thomas; and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, built in 1439 and the largest building of its type in the World.


How is it that Vienna’s mood manages to be at once so sanguinary and so sanguine? Somehow the city’s fondness for the morbid and the bizarre never seems at odds with its sunny stability. Rather, all Vienna works the way its graveyards and its Graben work. The order here is rich, organic, and complex. Death takes its place alongside life, the old alongside the new, the eccentric alongside the conventional, the mad alongside the sane.

Even the city’s geography is orderly in an organic, inspiriting way. Vienna is a series of concentric circles, or, more accurately, half circles, rippling outward from its center in the inner town (where Vienna began as the ancient Roman camp of Vindobona) to the Vienna Woods themselves, which are the ultimate foothills and fingerlings of the Alps. At the nucleus, the first district, you find this vigorous hodgepodge of old and new, sublimity and grotesquerie, urbanity and coziness. Around it, in a protective and officious circle, there is the Ringstrasse, a collection of public and private buildings, all planned nearly simultaneously (in the mid nineteenth century) on an enormous scale. The buildings are charmless but imposing, and they were all designed as though they were theatrical sets, with an eye to the illustrious past: fake Renaissance for the university, fake early Baroque for the Burgtheater (the Baroque being the period when common-
ers joined with the gentry in flocking to the theater), fake Gothic for the Votive Church and the Town Hall (since the medieval commune represented the source of Viennese government), fake Greek for the democratic institution of Parliament. At once expansive and forbidding, the Ringstrasse hems in the vibrant inner town and formalizes it. It
was built where the fortress walls of Vienna once stood, and even today it acts as a sort of wall, inside which the city carries on with the appropriate metropolitan bustle, and outside which Vienna can sprawl and relax and indulge itself. Small wonder that the next ring beyond the Ringstrasse, the Gurtel, is best known as the circle where streetwalkers ply their trade.

Beyond Gurtel, Vienna fans out into neighborhoods, pleasant, almost bucolic districts that retain the character of their past lives as quaint Austrian villages. There are workers’ regions (including the beautiful and still-functioning Karl Marx-Hof housing project, built during the utopian twenties, when the city was often referred to as Red Vienna) and posh residential areas. Good mansion viewing can be had in the nineteenth district, where you can and should visit the Gey-muller-Schlossel. Although its clock collection is its gratest draw, the Geymuller-Schlossel is one of Vienn’a most delicious repositories of Biedermeier furniture, the igenious and beautiful stuff made to amuse the upper middle class during the early nineteenth century.


Friendly and welcoming Zermatt, with its grandiose panoramas of snowcapped peaks that include the legendary Matterhorn, boasts the longest winter season in Europe and the highest skiiing area. In this picturesque town no cars are permitted. Horse-drawn carriages in summer and snow sleighs in winter add further ambience to Zermatt’s quaint Walliser
houses and the elegant, often world famous hotels.

The absence of cars has helped bestow an elite status on Zermatt. The picture perfect streets and snow-lined pathways are clean, pristine and romantic in atmosphere. In the summertime, walking and climbing enthusiasts can enjoy the unlimited scope of the magnificent mountains and glaciers, whilst skiing devotees enjoy the seemingly endless pistes
in wonderful powder snow.

Zermatt attracts tourists year after year, not only for its fresh and clean mountain air, but also for its many excellent restaurants, bars and nightclubs; the tempting, exclusive shops and boutiques and the friendly hospitality of the local residents.

But it is the mysterious, ever-present Matterhorn, soaring like a proud sentinel into the cloudless skies that has provided Zermatt with a large quotient of its centuries-old fame.


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