Noosa-based Olivier Miller is owner and principal of four Laguna real estate offices on the Sunshine Coast and Gympie and specialises in prestige and waterfront properties.
She and her husband Ian have travelled extensively by sea and land throughout Olivier’s 40-year real estate career.
They have recently returned from the 23-day Viking ‘European Sojourn’ sailing three rivers and eight countries and said she would absolutely recommend it.
Olivier and Ian added an extension option before and after the Sojourn, so they spent an extra two nights in Amsterdam prior to catching the cruise and two days after they embarked to explore Transylvania.
The cruise included nineteen guided tours across Amsterdam, Vienna, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania and more, cruising the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers through eight unique countries.
Olivier said they flew into Amsterdam and were met at airport and transported to accommodation by Viking staff and spent a couple of fabulous days sightseeing including a trip to the impressive Van Gogh museum.
“The accommodation was five stars, right in heart of the tourist spot and the Viking representative was based at the hotel to serve all clients needs which was great for new travellers and older travellers especially,” she said.
“We had a lovely room with food and breakfast included and it was fantastic.”
“We were transferred to the ship after two days touring the city and had booked a suite and I would definitely recommend doing the same again, however if you do all the tours, you don’t spend a lot of time in their room.
“The embarkation was really good, and they have two dining situations; sit down waiter service in the dining room with excellent service and the other option is the al fresco dining which was my preference.”
The couple met up with Noosa friends on the boat and although they sat and dined with them, dining was a wonderful way of mingling.
There were only one hundred and eighty guests on board, around fifty were Australian and two dozen of mixed cultures the rest were from America and Canada. She said most were retirees of mixed fitness.
“I would highly recommend the tours, but many people choose not to and just relax,“ she said.
“Every day two or three tours were offered and rated by mobility so you can still go out and enjoy tours or more vigorous tours.
“They had it all covered. I enjoyed some of the leisurely tours which for me was perfect for this trip while my husband and his friend hired bikes on a few occasions and really enjoyed that.”
“The food and people in Germany were very hospitable. We did visit the war camps on our own, which was actually quite awful. We hired a car, and it was just something we wanted to do and see the museum where you really get a sense of what happened to these poor people.
“We hopped off the boat for tours in Cologne, Miltenberger, Wurzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Passau, and Melk in Germany and we made sure we saw the most and the best of it.
“We decided we only wanted to do a morning or afternoon tour so we could do a bit of relaxing, and we found that worked really well so we would have a morning or afternoon off each day.
“Sailing through the UNESCO World Heritage Wachau was beautiful with castles on the river and lovely to see.
“We loved Vienna, we had a lot of fun. The buildings were absolutely amazing and had a look at those – you just don’t see anything like it in Australia and there were lots of offerings in regard to various tours.”
* The second part of the story will be published in next week’s Travel Today feature.
