River cruise ports of call
Every port that the major river-cruise operators include in published itineraries — 93 entries with ship lists, operator coverage, and notes on what to see ashore.
Passau
Passau is the German border town built on a narrow promontory at the confluence of the Inn, the Ilz and the Danube…
Regensburg
Regensburg is the best-preserved medieval city in Germany north of the Alps, with a complete twelfth-century stone bridge, a Gothic cathedral and…
Nuremberg
Nuremberg sits on the Main-Danube canal that links the Rhine system to the Danube, and is the most common departure or arrival…
Koblenz
Koblenz sits at the Deutsches Eck, the spit of land where the Moselle joins the Rhine beneath the colossal equestrian statue of…
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the most-served embarkation port on the Lower Rhine and the gateway to almost every northbound itinerary the major operators publish.…
Cologne
Cologne's twin-spired Gothic cathedral rises directly above the cruise berths, making it the most photographed skyline on the Lower Rhine. The Altstadt's…
Rüdesheim
Rüdesheim am Rhein is the cobblestone wine village at the foot of the Niederwald, famous for the cramped, music-filled Drosselgasse and for…
Mainz
Mainz sits at the confluence of the Rhine and the Main and is best known for the Gutenberg Museum, which holds two…
Speyer
Speyer is dominated by its eleventh-century Imperial Cathedral, the largest surviving Romanesque church in the world and the burial place of eight…
Mannheim
Mannheim sits at the Rhine-Neckar confluence and is unusual among German cities in that its old town is laid out as a…
Heidelberg
Heidelberg's red-sandstone castle stands ruined above the Neckar, framed by the wooded slopes of the Königstuhl and reached by funicular from the…
Strasbourg
Strasbourg's Petite France quarter — the network of half-timbered tanners' houses ranged along the canalised Ill — is the most filmed urban…
Breisach
Breisach is a small fortified town on the German bank opposite Colmar, used by virtually every Upper Rhine itinerary as the launch…
Basel
Basel is the southernmost terminus of every Rhine itinerary — the river above here is non-navigable for cruise vessels — and is…
Antwerp
Antwerp is the principal Belgian port on tulip-time and Belgium-Netherlands itineraries that loop through the Rhine and the Scheldt. The Plantin-Moretus printing-house…
Kinderdijk
Kinderdijk is the line of nineteen eighteenth-century windmills strung along the polder dikes south-east of Rotterdam, a UNESCO site and the most…
Veere
Veere is a tiny former Hanseatic port on Walcheren in Zeeland, with a disproportionately grand late-Gothic town hall and a brick basilica…
Arnhem
Arnhem on the Nederrijn is the city of the September 1944 Operation Market Garden battle, and the Airborne Museum at Hartenstein in…
Hoorn
Hoorn is one of the small Golden-Age former Zuiderzee ports on the western shore of the IJsselmeer, with a perfectly preserved harbour…
Budapest
Budapest is the most-served port on the Danube and the standard embarkation or disembarkation city for the entire eastward fleet. The neo-Gothic…
Vienna
Vienna is the centrepiece of every classical-Danube itinerary and most ships overnight here so passengers can attend an evening concert of Mozart…
Linz
Linz is the standard departure point for an excursion to Salzburg, ninety minutes south by coach, where the Mozart birthplace, the Mirabell…
Melk
Melk's yellow-and-white Benedictine abbey rises on a granite bluff directly above the cruise berth and is the most photographed monastery on the…
Bratislava
Bratislava is the smallest and most compact capital on the Danube, with a hilltop castle, a coronation cathedral and an old town…
Mohács
Mohács is the Hungarian border-control town on the lower Danube, used by every cruise heading downstream from Budapest into Croatia and Serbia.…
Belgrade
Belgrade sits at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, with the Kalemegdan fortress crowning the bluff between the two rivers.…
Iron Gates
The Iron Gates is the dramatic 130-kilometre defile where the Danube cuts through the southern Carpathians between Serbia and Romania, narrowing in…
Vidin
Vidin is a quiet Bulgarian river port whose principal sight is the Baba Vida fortress, the only fully preserved medieval castle in…
Russe
Russe (Ruse) is the largest Bulgarian Danube port and the standard departure point for the day excursion to Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval…
Bucharest
Bucharest itself does not sit on the Danube, but every lower-Danube itinerary that disembarks at Giurgiu or Oltenița includes a coach transfer…
Paris
Paris is the embarkation and disembarkation port for every Seine river-cruise itinerary, with ships moored on the Quai de Grenelle within sight…
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main is an embarkation alternative to Amsterdam for itineraries that begin on the Main and head east toward Nuremberg or…
Würzburg
Würzburg is the northern end of the Romantic Road and is dominated by the baroque Residenz of the prince-bishops, whose ceiling fresco…
Bamberg
Bamberg's old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site whose historic centre straddles the Regnitz river — the half-timbered Old Town Hall…
Cochem
Cochem is the most-photographed town on the Moselle, with the Reichsburg castle perched on its conical rock above a tightly packed cluster…
Bernkastel-Kues
Bernkastel-Kues is the wine-tourist epicentre of the Moselle, a half-timbered jewel-box of crooked Renaissance houses around a fountain-and-Rathaus market square. The vineyards…
Trier
Trier is the oldest city in Germany, founded by the Romans in 16 BC, and contains the largest collection of Roman remains…
New Orleans
New Orleans is the southern-end embarkation port for every Lower Mississippi paddle-wheeler itinerary. The French Quarter, Jackson Square and the St. Louis…
Vicksburg
Vicksburg, Mississippi is the site of the 47-day siege that ended in Confederate surrender on 4 July 1863, splitting the Confederacy in…
Memphis
Memphis is the music city of the Mississippi, embarking and disembarking the cruises that run upstream toward Cincinnati and St. Louis. Graceland,…
Porto
Porto is the embarkation port for every Douro itinerary, with ships moored on the Vila Nova de Gaia quays beneath the row…
Régua
Peso da Régua sits at the centre of the Alto Douro Vinhateiro, the demarcated port-wine region whose terraced schist hillsides have been…
Pinhão
Pinhão is the heart of the Cima Corgo, the most highly classified sub-region of the Douro for port-wine production. The little railway…
Salamanca
Salamanca is the inland Spanish university city reached by coach from the Douro berths at Vega de Terrón or Barca d'Alva. The…
Vega de Terron
Vega de Terrón is the upper turning-point for the Douro fleet, a small isolated berth on the Portuguese-Spanish border. There is essentially…
Pocinho
Pocinho is the small Douro berth used as the gateway to the Côa Valley Archaeological Park, where over a thousand prehistoric rock…
Lyon
Lyon sits at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône and is the standard embarkation port for southbound Rhône-Saône itineraries. The…
Tournon
Tournon-sur-Rhône is a small wine town on the right bank of the Rhône, opposite Tain-l'Hermitage and its famously steep Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage…
Avignon
Avignon's Palais des Papes — the colossal fortified Gothic palace built by the seven popes who ruled from here between 1309 and…
Arles
Arles is the southernmost cruise berth on the Rhône and was a major Roman town — the amphitheatre, the theatre, the cryptoporticus…
Tarascon
Tarascon's massive square-towered medieval castle of King René rises sheer from the Rhône bank and is one of the best-preserved fifteenth-century royal…
Viviers
Viviers is the smallest and quietest stop on a southbound Rhône itinerary, a tightly packed medieval bishopric on a limestone outcrop above…
Mâcon
Mâcon sits on the Saône at the southern edge of Burgundy, and is the standard launch point for an excursion into the…
Beaune
Beaune is the wine capital of the Côte d'Or, reached by coach from the Saône cruise berth at Chalon-sur-Saône. The Hospices de…
Vienne
Vienne is the small Roman town immediately south of Lyon on the Rhône, with a remarkably intact first-century Temple of Augustus and…
Natchez
Natchez, Mississippi is the antebellum-mansion town par excellence, with more than thirty preserved Greek Revival and Italianate plantation houses opened to visitors…
St. Louis
St. Louis sits at the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi and is dominated by Eero Saarinen's 192-metre stainless-steel Gateway Arch,…
Hannibal
Hannibal, Missouri is the Mississippi-bluff town in which Mark Twain spent his childhood and which became the model for the Tom Sawyer…
Dubuque
Dubuque, Iowa is the oldest city in Iowa and the most northerly of the standard upper-Mississippi cruise calls. The National Mississippi River…
St. Paul
St. Paul, Minnesota is the northern terminus of the upper-Mississippi cruise itineraries — beyond the Twin Cities the river is no longer…
Oak Alley
Oak Alley Plantation sits on the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge and is named for the quarter-mile double row of…
Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge is the Louisiana state capital and a regular call on Lower Mississippi cruises. The Old State Capitol — a Gothic…
St. Francisville
St. Francisville, Louisiana is the small Felicianas-parish town in the bluffs above the Mississippi, known for its plantation houses and ante-bellum gardens.…
Burlington
Burlington, Iowa is the Mississippi bluff town that gave its name to the Burlington Northern railroad. The principal sight is Snake Alley…
Davenport
Davenport, Iowa is part of the four-city Quad Cities region on the upper Mississippi (with Bettendorf, Iowa and Rock Island and Moline,…
La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin is the northern-Mississippi cruise call beneath the limestone Grandad Bluff, which gives a four-state panorama from a 180-metre lookout…
Cairo
Cairo is the standard pre-cruise stay for every Nile itinerary. The Giza pyramid plateau with the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the…
Luxor
Luxor is built over ancient Thebes and is the embarkation or disembarkation port for every Nile cruise. The Karnak temple complex with…
Edfu
Edfu's Temple of Horus is the best-preserved ancient temple in Egypt, built by the Ptolemies between 237 and 57 BC and excavated…
Kom Ombo
Kom Ombo is unusual among Egyptian temples in being a double sanctuary, dedicated equally to the crocodile-god Sobek and the falcon-god Horus…
Aswan
Aswan is the southern terminus of every Nile cruise — the Aswan High Dam upstream prevents further passage. The Philae temple of…
Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel is the pair of colossal rock-cut temples built by Ramses II in the thirteenth century BC at the southern frontier…
Esna
Esna is the small Nile town between Luxor and Edfu, dominated by the Ptolemaic Temple of Khnum — the ram-headed god who…
Sa Dec
Sa Dec is the small Mekong-delta town in which Marguerite Duras spent her childhood and set her novel The Lover, and where…
Tan Chau
Tan Chau is the last Vietnamese town on the upper Mekong before the Cambodian border, known for its hand-loomed black silk and…
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the Cambodian capital, sitting at the confluence of the Mekong, the Tonle Sap and the Bassac rivers — the…
Siem Reap
Siem Reap is the post-cruise base for every Mekong itinerary, reached by short flight from Phnom Penh and giving access to the…
Vernon
Vernon is the nearest cruise berth to Giverny and is the call from which every Seine itinerary launches the day excursion to…
Rouen
Rouen is the medieval capital of Normandy, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the Place du Vieux-Marché in…
Honfleur
Honfleur is the picture-perfect Seine-estuary port whose Vieux Bassin — a rectangle of slate-fronted seventeenth-century houses surrounding a yacht harbour — has…
Paducah
Paducah, Kentucky sits at the confluence of the Ohio and the Tennessee and is a regular stop on cruises through both river…
Mandalay
Mandalay is the cultural and religious capital of Myanmar and the standard embarkation port for upper-Irrawaddy cruises. The Mahamuni Pagoda with its…
Mingun
Mingun is the Irrawaddy village just upstream of Mandalay, dominated by the unfinished Mingun Pahtodawgyi pagoda — a colossal brick stupa begun…
Bagan
Bagan is the eleventh- to thirteenth-century capital whose plain along the Irrawaddy holds over two thousand surviving Buddhist temples, stupas and pagodas…
Pakokku
Pakokku is the working market town on the west bank of the Irrawaddy upstream of Bagan, famous in Myanmar for its tobacco-growing…
Moscow
Moscow is the standard embarkation port for Russian Volga itineraries, reached from the Moskva via the Moscow Canal, which links the Russian…
Uglich
Uglich is one of the smaller Golden Ring towns on the Upper Volga, with the red-brick Church of Dimitri-on-the-Blood marking the spot…
Dürnstein
Dürnstein is the postcard village of the Wachau, a single cobbled street running between baroque townhouses beneath the powder-blue tower of the…
Barca d'Alva
Barca d'Alva is the alternative upper berth on the Portuguese side of the international Douro, used in summer when Vega de Terrón…
Chalon-sur-Saône
Chalon-sur-Saône is the cruise berth from which the Beaune and Côte d'Or excursions depart on most Saône itineraries. The town itself is…
Bratislava Castle Hill
The cubic four-towered castle on the bluff above Bratislava is the most recognisable silhouette on the middle Danube, dating from the ninth…
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is the standard pre- or post-cruise base for every Mekong itinerary. The colonial-French former Saigon Opera House,…
Devin Castle
Devin Castle stands on a high crag where the Morava joins the Danube, a few kilometres downstream from Bratislava and immediately on…