The Elegant Elbe was our third river cruise with Viking, but it will not be our last. We're hooked on river cruising and Viking has made it a fine art. Once you arrive in your destination city, you are totally cared for from start to finish. Someone meets you at the airport and that is the last time you have to move your luggage until you check in for your flight home. It just miraculously arrives in your hotel room or cabin. Once in the cabin, you can unpack and settle in for a week of as much relaxation or as much activity as you desire. Viking provides the activities; you just pick and choose.

The Elegant Elbe tour starts out, interestingly enough, in a city which is not on the Elbe: either Prague or Berlin. There, you spend a night a deluxe hotel and get a chance to reset your body clocks, as well as get a tiny taste of one of the great cities of Europe. We started in Prague on an extremely hot day! After a nap and a swim in the Hilton's gorgeous infinity pool, we were ready to be out and about. We took the Metro to the Old Town and got tickets for a concert that night. On any given day in Prague, there are tickets available for dozens of concerts in many of the old churches and palaces. After some shopping (at Manufaktura for Czech handcrafts and Blue for crystal) and dinner, we spent an enjoyable hour listening to an outstanding organ, trumpet, and soprano concert.