Cruise Description

7 Night Cruise sailing from Cologne roundtrip aboard Rhein Symphony.

Highlights of this cruise:

Cologne
Cologne is situated on the river Rhein in North Rhine-Westphalia and is the fourth largest city in Germany. It is one of the nation's media, tourism and business hotspots.

Cologne Cathedral (German: Kolner Dom) is the city's most famous monument and the Cologne residents' most respected landmark. It is a Gothic church, started in 1248, and completed in 1880. In 1996, it was designated a World Heritage site; it houses the Shrine of the Three Kings that supposedly contains the relics of the Three Magi. Also worth seeing are the city’s twelve Romanesque churches. These buildings are outstanding examples of medieval church architecture. The origins of some of the churches go back as far as Roman times.

Cologne has several museums. The famous Roman-Germanic Museum features art and architecture from the city's distant past; the Museum Ludwig houses one of the most important collections of modern art in Europe, including a Picasso collection matched only by the museums in Barcelona and Paris. The Schnutgen Museum of religious art is housed in St. Cecilia, one of Cologne's Twelve Romanesque churches.

Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. It is located at the confluence of the River Rhine and the River Neckar in the northwestern corner of Baden-Württemberg. Mannheim is known as "die Quadratestadt" (the German word for "city of the squares) due to its streets and avenues of its central area being laid out in a grid pattern.

Attractions in Mannheim include the second largest Baroque castle in Europe and the water tower. The Reiss-Engelhorn Museum (REM) houses a permanent exhibit on world cultures along with an exhibition hall whose contents range from photography to astronomy.

Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) and its monument (Emperor William I on horseback) are situated. It is a historical city with remains dating back to 1000BC.

Koblenz boasts extensive defensive works, including forts crowning the hills encircling the town to the west, and the citadel of Ehrenbreitstein on the opposite bank of the Rhine. Since 1890, the city has consisted of the Altstadt (old city) and the Neustadt (new city) or Klemenstadt. Of these, the Altstadt is closely built and has only a few fine streets and squares, while the Neustadt possesses numerous broad streets and a handsome frontage along the Rhine.