Cruise Description

8 Night Cruise sailing from Cologne roundtrip aboard nickoSpirit.

Welcome the New Year on an unforgettable river cruise along the Rhine! Experience the historic and wintry Antwerp. Continue to Rotterdam, a fascinating port city with modern architecture. In the EU city of Brussels, experience the impressive buildings and charm of the Belgian capital in winter splendor. You will celebrate the turn of the year in Amsterdam, where you have short ways to the canal city. Let yourself be inspired by this unforgettable New Year's Eve trip.

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.

Rotterdam
The city of Rotterdam is unlike Holland's other cities. Located on the mighty Maas River, it is a city with outstanding architecture, an abundance of attractions, festivals and museums, a swinging young city culture, excellent shopping facilities, restaurants and cafes.

Rotterdam is only a half-hour from The Hague and an hour from Amsterdam, but it is centuries away from them in both appearance and personality. Here, instead of the usual Dutch web of little streets, alleyways, and winding canals, there's a spacious and elegant shopping mall and the world's busiest ocean harbor. Rotterdam is a fascinating place to see and experience, particularly when you consider that this city was a living monument to Holland's Golden Age until it was bombed to rubble during World War II. The city retains traces of its ancient history in only two areas -- Delfshaven (Delft Harbor) and Oude Haven (Old Harbor).

Today this bustling metropolis has the world's biggest port, created when its several harbors were opened directly to the sea, 32km (20 miles) away, by the dredging of a deep water channel that accommodates even the largest oil tankers. Europoort handles more ships and more cargo every year than any other port in the world.

Amsterdam
Amsterdam, the capital of The Netherlands is built around a concentric network of canals spanned by over 1000 bridges making canal cruises one of the most attractive ways of viewing the city. Many of the houses date back to the 17th century. These narrow-fronted merchants' houses are characterised by the traditionally Dutch ornamented gables.

The oldest part of the city is Nieuwmarkt, located near the first canals - Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht - built to protect the city against invasion in the 17th century. Today, Amsterdam's famous liberalism has survived in the city's 'coffee shops and thriving sex industry.

The city has also long been a centre of diamond cutting and it is still possible to see diamond cutters at work. Amsterdam has a booming cultural life, boasting 53 museums, 61 art galleries, 12 concert halls and 20 theatre. A special canal boat (the 'museum boat') links 16 of the major museums. In the local countryside it is still possible to see working windmills.