Hanseatic Nature, Western Europe Short Cruise ex Hamburg to Porto – 30 Sep 2021

9 Night Cruise sailing from Hamburg to Porto aboard Hanseatic Nature.

* Please note that your choosen cruise is conducted in German only. All printed matters are available in German. Nevertheless our crew is fluent in English.

Traces of history and wild romantic landscapes paint the most beautiful pictures on a short but in-depth cruise. Days of spectacular experiences for fans of culture and nature await.

Highlights of this cruise:

Hamburg
Hamburg is a major port city and second largest city situated on the Elbe River in northern Germany. Two-thirds of Hamburg is occupied by parks, lakes or tree-lined canals, giving a refreshing rural feel to one of the country’s major industrial and media centres.

Sightseeing is concentrated in two main areas, the city center and the harbor. Hamburg’s historical center is mostly modern with only a few ancient houses and churches surviving the 1841 fires and WW2 bombings. The city center looks onto the Alster Lake, of which the outer section (Aussenalster) is particularly attractive.

The other principal sightseeing center is the harbor and the adjoining red-light district of St Pauli with its infamous main street, the Reeperbahn. St Pauli is the city’s leading nightlife area, with numerous theaters and respectable nightspots. The harbor is the second biggest in Europe and provides visitors with boat tours, museum ships, the Speicherstadt warehouse museums and the colorful comings and goings of any major port.

Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe. Today it is a busy city with a port and a university. Although many of Belgium’s visitors overlook Ghent, its beauty is often compared to the more well-known Bruges.

Ghent boasts many historic buildings, including three abbeys. Attractions include St Bavo’s Cathedral, place of Charles V’s baptism and home to The Adoration of the Mystical Lamb, the Van Eyck brothers’ masterpiece; the Town Hall, where the Treaty of Ghent was signed in 1576; the Castle of the Counts, a medieval castle surrounded by the Lieve canal; the 15th-century Cloth Hall; the medieval town centre with its old guild houses; the Museum of Fine Arts, and the newly renovated Museum of Industrial Archaeology. The Sunday morning Flower Market is worth a visit.

St Peter Port
St Peter Port is the capital of Guernsey and has been described as the Channel Island’s most beautiful town. It is located in the Channel Islands southeast of the English Channel. Guernsey is a lush garden of flowers and vegetables, with about 300 miles of roads and lanes. The island has retained its natural beauty and the coastline has remained unspoilt. Dotted around the island you will see occasional crumbling ruins, and herds of the golden Guernsey cows.

St. Peter Port is an elegant and charming little town with lines of Regency and Victorian buildings and numerous cobbled streets. Steep stairways and alleyways weave their way up and down between houses and there is a mass of boats in its harbour.

Shopping in St Peter Port is an unmissable experience. Electronic and photographic equipment, jewellery and perfume are all good, low duty buys, along with wines, spirits and tobacco and of course the famous Guernsey jumper. Small boutiques offer exclusive clothes, shoes and leather goods, whilst the Old Quarter is the place to find antiques.

Oporto
Oporto (Porto) is a city in northern Portugal and is the second largest city in Portugal. One of the most beautiful towns on the Iberian peninsula, Oporto is enchantingly situated on the great gorge of the Douro River in northern Portugal. It is famous for its world-renowned wine “Port,” made in the upper Douro valley by a process practiced nowhere else in the world.

Porto’s historical centre was awarded World Heritage status by UNESCO in 1996. The city is extremely hilly, with many buildings built into a cliff face that overlooks the river. Stairs cut into the stone run up and down the cliff face and offer a laborious but rewarding walking tour. Across the river from Porto proper, in the suburb of Gaia, are located the warehouses of notable companies dealing with Port Wine, such as Cálem, Fonseca, Sandemans, Kopke, and others.