Loosen Your Purse Strings!

Categories

Today I attended an AmaWaterways webinar about river cruising through Portugal, which just happens to be near the top of my bucket list.

It refreshed my memory of how much we loved exploring Lisbon and Spain as part of an ocean cruise a couple of years ago.  That was another "trip of a lifetime" for us, and as such, we're ready to return!

The ports, excursions and culinary pleasures described in the webinar painted beautiful pictures of the Douro Valley cruise and also the pleasures of Madrid, a wonderful add-on that happens to be one of my very favorite big cities in the world.

What really impacted me more than anything in the webinar was remembering as a result of the friendly, high quality presentation, all the wonderful crew members on the AmaWaterways vacation that we've been following with our shared virtual cruise.

There are differences between cruise lines that go beyond what you would understand on a superficial level from perusing a brochure or web site.  Those intangibles make the biggest difference.

It makes me proud and happy to be sharing more information about that cruise, because I know you will love a river cruise with this great company should you choose to go.

You might need to stretch your budget to take one of the better cruise lines like AmaWaterways, but you owe it to yourself to try it.  Perhaps being shut down from all travel for a year will help us all understand we must do a trip right, because we may not have another chance at it.

When we boarded the plane to fly to Europe, I really had not thought about Empress Maria Theresa at all --- I'm not sure I ever heard of her --- but her ghost seemed to be awaiting us everywhere we went.

Of course, I know hearing a fascinating narration about history from a local expert while you are in the region where it happened is far superior to reading about it in a blog post, but if nothing else, please take a look at some of the photos on this link and imagine being there yourself.  And if you enjoy reading about the history of the Habsburg family, you will find the two videos in Part 2 to be of particular interest.

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Part 1

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Part 2

Wes

P.S. I should warn you that if you take a Danube cruise yourself, you may find that you have become a lifelong fan of Johann Strauss, the Waltz King.