River Sightseeing

I do like a wee sightseeing trip on a boat along a city river. The first I ever did was London. Now, being a Londoner myself, the Thames will always have a special place in my heart, and there are stretches - by the Houses of Parliament, and then between London and Tower Bridge, by the Tower of London - which can compare with the best that other cities have to offer. However, I think that I'd have to give a trip along the Seine in Paris from the Ile St. Louis and Notre Dame, down to the Eiffel Tower the edge. There's something about having inhabited islands in the middle of a river in the middle of a city which I really like, and the face that the Ile de la Cite presents to the Seine is just gorgeous.

Prague

Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral complex sketched from riverboat on the Vltava

Quick trivia question. On which river does Prague stand? I ask because it is one of the central European capital cities that doesn't actually lie on the Danube. Prague lies on the River Vltava. And let's be fair, there are several reasons why you might want to take a boat trip along the Vltava. The Charles Bridge looks if anything even better when approached from the river itself, even on a perishing cold day in April. There's a rather lovely view of the whole Prague Castle complex with St. Vitus' Cathedral too. It's not quite amongst the absolute top river trips for me simply because all the really good stuff tends to be very concentrated in the same area. Still well worth a few bob though.

Berlin

Right, remember that I said that Prague is one of the central European capitals that isn't on the Danube? Well, neither is Berlin. It's not on the mighty Rhine either. In fact it's on the relatively lowly Spree. I didn't necessarily expect great things from my River trip on the Spree. However I must have been discounting the fact that not only does the Spree boast an island which has been built on, it boasts an island which is home to 5 of the world's finest Museums. Let's be fair, any river which boasts an island called Museum Island is always going to get my vote. 

Actually, I really enjoyed the whole trip, from the oldest part of Berlin, down past Museum Island, then the Reichstag and the much more modern area. I'd certainly put it in the top rank of river sightseeing trips I've taken, although maybe not quite as high as Paris. Not much in it though. 

Budapest

Sketched from the deck of a sightseeing waterbus on the Danube in Budapest

Budapest most definitely is on the Danube, and I think that this was my problem with it. You see I think I just expected it was going to blow all my other river trips away. . . and it didn't. It didn't help that the speakers on the boat didn't work very well, and I couldn't really hear the commentary. It's a shame, because Budapest certainly has plenty of spectacle to offer . The Parliament building alone is worth the price of admission. But, somehow it didn't quite blow me away. Possibly because the Danube is pretty wide throughout Budapest, and although there was a lot of grandeur there, it all felt a bit impersonal, in a way that the Vltava did, but the Seine and the Spree didn't. Even so, while I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I enjoyed those , I'd still say it's pretty much of a must do if you visit Budapest.