Gingerbread houses, Christmas trees, caroling and concerts on board ships add extra spice to cruises on Europe’s rivers during the month of December. But the biggest incentive to don winter coats and hats is the Christmas markets in ports along the way. Almost every city has at least one filling municipal and cathedral squares in the weeks leading up to December 25 and almost every river cruise line operating in Europe extends it cruise season into December to take advantage of the holiday glow. I was aboard Viking River Cruises on its Danube Waltz itinerary cruising from Budapest, Hungary to Passau, Germany with stops in Bratislava, Slovakia, Vienna and Linz, Austria.

Each city’s Christmas markets embraced the festive season by selling decorations, holiday novelties, food and mulled wine to warm heart and soul under twinkling lights on cold December evenings. Some added musical entertainment and carnival rides. Can one be too old to climb aboard a carousel?

An infectious holiday cheer brought smiles to passengers and crew on board. One afternoon crew members donned Santa hats and reindeer headbands to lead passengers in a sing-along that ended with a conga line winding through the lounge. An advent choir boarded the ship after dinner in Bratislava for an a cappella performance. In Austria, costumed singers and musicians presented songs from “The Sound of Music” and ended the evening with Christmas carols — “Silent Night” in three languages.

Passengers participated in trimming Christmas trees, personalizing globe ornaments with markers. The pastry chef patiently taught us the art of gingerbread house-making and to my envious eyes some structures turned out quite good.

The kitchen crew made an extra effort to warm us up with a holiday glow. After a shore excursion one chilly afternoon the chef welcomed returning passengers in the reception area with cheese fondue spread on slices of fresh bread plus cups of hot chocolate with an optional splash of rum or amaretto.

Have holiday gifts to buy for family and friends back home? Bring an extra suitcase. Cities along the Danube offer shopping districts with brand-name stores as well as cute boutiques. And, of course, the Christmas markets present a bounty of items, some handmade.

Christmas markets bring out residents, especially after work and on weekends. If you’re game, you might interact over a glass of gluhwein. After visiting two or three markets, the next few might seem just the same, but be on the lookout for one-of-a-kind finds and local food specialties.

In Budapest, crowds filled two Christmas markets within walking distance of our ship. A Nativity scene with large, colorful figures stood in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica where a Christmas tree towered over an ice rink. Vendors in wooden huts sold Christmas ornaments, marzipan, Hungarian fried bread and steaming cups of mulled wine.

In Slovakia, sausages and potato pancakes simmered on stoves in a small market outside Bratislava Castle perched 300 feet above the Danube. Our excursion stopped for a view from the windy terrace then descended to the Old Town for a walk on cobblestones past warmly lit cafes to a Christmas market where cloth dolls in folk dress caught my eye.

In Vienna, I strolled past Rolex, Dior and Tiffany stores on Kohlmarkt Street on my way to Café Central where a glass case overflowed with pastries. A reindeer head made from gingerbread mousse and baked apple called out to me.

Christmas markets were scattered across Vienna, one by city hall, another at Am Hof where raclette oozed onto plates and flutes of Champagne bubbled on a wooden bar. Outside Hofburg Palace, a few vendors sold high-end goods. I couldn’t resist a jaunty made-in-Austria woolen hat. At my favorite market, outside St. Stephen’s Cathedral where Mozart married in 1782, I had to have two wooden toy trains in letters spelling my grandsons’ names.

That night, we boarded a motor coach to travel along city streets lit with holiday decorations to a small theater for a Mozart and Strauss concert just for Viking guests.

In Linz, Austria, streetcars streamed past Christmas market stalls on the Hauptplatz, one of the largest squares in Europe, but shoppers seemed so engrossed in the goods they barely noticed. My search for an authentic Austrian gift for someone back home yielded only apparel from distant lands — Peru, Nepal, China — so I left, disappointed.

In Passau, Germany, our tour group went to Café Simon for a demonstration of gingerbread making with samples of three flavors washed down with an orange and rum punch. Refortified, I made my way to the plaza outside St. Stephen’s Cathedral where bells sounding the hour reverberated around more than 70 rustic wooden Christmas market kiosks. Patrons stood around high tables snarfing down foot-long wurst sandwiches. I resisted the temptation of gluhwein stands to seek out something German-made for that someone still on my gift list. I found it inside a make-shift shop where a young woman was selling woolen hats and cute head wraps made by her German grandmother.

Just when passengers think they have seen their last Christmas market, those departing from the Munich airport find one more under a canopy between terminals. More than 40 market stalls and 450 Christmas trees set up here along with an ice-skating rink with skate rentals for those who want to do a few spins before their flight departs.

For once, I was glad mine was delayed.

Viking River Cruises: 800-304-9616

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If you’re a germaphobe you might want to stop reading now.

You could be freaked out by the displays in this museum showcasing in sometimes graphic detail the sorts of diseases that — no pun intended — plague humankind.

But on the other hand, you might be reassured knowing highly skilled scientists work 24/7 to fight worldwide health horrors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.

The David J. Sencer CDC Museum occupies part of the headquarters of the CDC, the only federal agency headquartered outside the Washington, D.C. area. My first clue these folks are, um, deadly serious about their work here? Armed guards at the gate to this vast complex used mirrors to check for bombs under our tour bus and kept their eyes trained on us as we were escorted inside the building. We submitted photo IDs and went through a security screening that would make a TSA supervisor proud.

Visitors don’t need to be part of a group to take a free self-guided tour, nor do they need an appointment unless there are more than 10 people in their party. But for groups of 10 to 30, I highly recommend booking tours guided by CDC employees who volunteer their time to tell visitors about the important work that percolates behind these walls. When she isn’t guiding visitors on her lunch break, our docent, Latoya Simmons, told us she studies foodborne illnesses. She specializes in salmonella and e coli. Sweet.

The museum occupies two floors, the top devoted to temporary topics on global health. Through May 1, 2020, “Changing Winds: Public Health and Indian Country” will demonstrate how tribal nations in the U.S. address modern-day health challenges while using traditional knowledge and practices.

Bottom floor exhibits explain the work and history of the CDC. The agency grew out of a desire to eradicate malaria, a big problem in the South in the early 1900s that drew the attention of Robert Woodruff, former president of The Coca-Cola Co. based in Atlanta. He had a hunting preserve and farm hit hard by malaria and created a fund to study the disease at Atlanta’s Emory University. In 1946, the Communicable Disease Center, or CDC, was founded and began work in a small office in the city. Its mission: malaria. A year later, Woodruff helped make a deal with Emory to sell the federal government 15 acres adjacent to the university for the tidy sum of $10. CDC employees ponied up the money, a dime a piece. On this site, the CDC expanded its mission to promote global health, prevent disease and respond to bioterrorism and other medical emergencies around the world. The museum opened in 1996 on the CDC’s 50^th anniversary and became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution welcoming 90,000 visitors a year.

From historical exhibits about malaria I moved on to other chilling topics such as swine flu, smallpox, the Zika virus, Ebola and post-9/11 issues. Remember the anthrax scare?

Simmons helped members of our group try on head-to-toe biosafety suits worn in some CDC labs. After mugging for cameras we quickly peeled off the blue suits that had become suffocatingly hot and gained a new appreciation for the day-to-day work of scientists here.

In an area addressing polio — Simmons emphasized the disease is far from being eradicated around the world —stood an iron lung from the 1950s. It reminded me of a torture device from “Game of Thrones.” I rounded a corner and came upon a clear glass bottle of icky yellow liquid containing bacteria — now dead, thank goodness — causing Legionnaire’s Disease, a notable CDC discovery. Another exhibit took me back to the 1969 moon landing. The CDC worked with NASA to quarantine astronauts upon their return to Earth on the off chance they encountered nasty alien bugs in outer space.

Posters, films and artifacts addressed present-day health issues: obesity, cancer, diabetes, smoking, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Though not preachy or scolding, the displays prompted me to leave the museum vowing to lose weight, improve my diet, exercise more and get a flu shot.

David J. Sencer CDC Museum: 404-639-0830

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On first sight, the American Duchess charmed me with her white, wedding-cake exterior adorned with gingerbread trim. The big, red paddle wheel on the back paid tribute to her steamboat lineage, a descendant of the legendary vessels that began plying the Mississippi River more than two centuries ago.

But once inside, this offspring flaunted her 21^st-century flair. The 37-foot ceiling in the Grand Lobby and Bar made me gasp, as did the colorful, curvy Murano glass discs over the long bar and entrance to The Grand Dining Room, the Austrian crystal chandeliers dangling between a broad, double staircase and the cozy lounge chairs clustered around a white baby grand piano.

Launched in 2017 by the American Queen Steamboat Co., this bright and airy Duchess more closely resembles a contemporary boutique hotel than an antebellum steamboat.

Her spaciousness carries over in staterooms, especially four loft suites, a first on an American river vessel. My river butler, the gracious W. Gerard Williams, showed me how to operate a remote to open the drapes on the two-story windows so I could enjoy river views from the lower level sitting area or bedroom upstairs. Loft suites have balconies, two bathrooms, two flat-screen TVs, sofa bed and dining table for four. Three owner’s suites and two deluxe suites contain similar furnishings.

Stately Queen and Young Royal

On my cruise up the Lower Mississippi River, American Duchess landed next to sister steamboat, American Queen, in Natchez, Miss. The nation’s largest river steamboat with a capacity for 436 passengers, the Queen launched in 1995,

It carries nearly three times the number of passengers as the 166-passenger Duchess but observed side-by-side from the riverbank, the difference between them isn’t obvious aside from size. Inside, though, the Queen resembles a grand dame of steamboating: furnishings reminiscent of the antebellum South, smaller staterooms with some opening onto the deck, lower ceilings, two seatings for dinner compared to open seating on the Duchess. With six decks, the Queen has room for facilities the Duchess does not: a small spa, plunge pool and outdoor grill. Her calliope adds an old-timey ambiance.

The two reminded me of Britain’s queen and its newest royal: Queen Elizabeth II radiates regal stateliness, American Meghan Markle stylish panache. Like Markle, American Duchess comes from humble beginnings. The company bought the former Isle of Capri riverboat casino docked in Bettendorf, Iowa, stripped it down and rebuilt it from the hull up as the luxury Duchess. Capt. Randy Kirschbaum, an Iowa resident, remembers. When he interviewed for his job, he was asked if he had experience operating steamboats on the Mississippi. Not only did he, he knew the Duchess’s predecessor in particular. He served as standby captain on the Isle of Capri, ready to navigate it onto the river should the casino have to leave the dock in an emergency.

Passengers come from across the U.S. as well as abroad. I met folks from England, Australia and the Cayman Islands drawn by the romance of steamboating on the Mississippi and stories of the American South and the Civil War.

Superb Storytelling

Those stories come alive on trips ashore. Hop-on-hop-off motor coaches, cleverly painted to resemble steamboats, take passengers on included shore excursions in every port as well as premium excursions at additional charge in most ports. Along the Lower Mississippi I toured antebellum plantation mansions, Civil War sites, museums and small Southern towns known for history, hospitality and shopping opportunities. Each night a map and description of the next day’s excursions came tucked inside the River Times program of activities delivered to staterooms.

Passengers taking hop-on-hop-off tours select a time for departure and print boarding passes at a kiosk on board. Local guides on the coaches give commentary between stops where passengers may disembark and reboard later. Sandwich boards mark designated stops for coaches circulating every 15-30 minutes.

To provide passengers with background on ports as well as stories, statistics and trivia about the river, the Duchess employs a “riverlorian,” a river historian who gives river chats and question-and-answer sessions. Our riverlorian, Mike Chapman, used his background in theater and education to both entertain and inform.

Lesson No. 1: The Duchess, like most riverboats, is a boat, not a ship. No. 2: The ramp used to disembark and board at landings isn’t called a gangway but a stage. The term dates from the days when showboats landed along river banks, played a calliope to draw a crowd and performers walked out on the gangway — er, stage — to give onlookers a taste of the entertainment on board.

Chapman talked in detail about the history of steamboating, floods and other disasters on the Mississippi, river navigation rules, the building of the longest levee system in the world and the geography of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. He talked about the Duchess’s fully functional paddle wheel and three Z-drive motors as well as her speed, stated in miles, not knots, per hour. The Duchess cruises at between 10 and 14 mph but can go much faster. In the annual Great Steamboat Race on the Ohio River, she won by accelerating to 22 mph in the final minutes. Passengers who want to learn more about steamboat navigation arrange a tour of the pilot house.

Dining and Entertainment

Chapman also served as stage manager for after-dinner performances in the Show Lounge. Three talented  and dancers, backed up by an accomplished house band, put on shows with themes ranging from movie tunes and river songs to a sock hop with passengers coaxed onto the dance floor.

After the show, the band set up in the Lincoln Library to entertain night owls. During the day, the library has books and board games to loan and becomes a venue for bingo and other competitions, receptions and meetings, such as a military veteran’s gathering.

As on most cruises, the daily schedule on American Duchess had nary a dull moment. We had a bourbon tasting, scavenger hunt and movies. Passengers can check out binoculars to scan the riverbank and bicycles and helmets for exploring in port. There’s a small fitness room and a business center with two computers and a printer. Free Wi-Fi is available throughout the boat, though service is slow and spotty.

The Grand Dining Room has open seating; passengers can choose to sit alone or join others. The elegant space spans the width of the boat with two-story windows on either side. The River Club & Terrace, with a few outdoor seats above the paddle wheel, becomes an alternate dining spot at night at no additional charge, reservations required. Wine and beer are included with dinner in both venues. Menus feature continental favorites — filet mignon, scallops and rack of lamb — and regional dishes. On the Lower Mississippi, we had shrimp, gumbo, Mississippi mud pie and more. A country club casual dress code applies at dinner: no shorts, hats or t-shirts.

Both restaurants also serve lunch and breakfast. Perks, a serve-yourself snack bar, fends off between-meal munchies.

Room service is available around the clock in all staterooms. Passengers in loft and owner’s suites have a river butler who not only arranges in-room dining but delivers pre-dinner canapés and after-show sweets. I always looked forward to seeing what Gerard had brought me when returning to my suite. As I roamed the Duchess’s spacious public areas, he seemed to appear out of nowhere to show me to my table at dinner and arrange for reserved seating in the Show Lounge.

Butlers also will pack and unpack luggage, polish shoes, facilitate laundry and pressing services and make dinner reservations. They are part of the Commodore Services on all three American Queen Steamboat Co. steamboats: the Duchess, the Queen and the American Empress in the Pacific Northwest. In 2020, the 245-passenger American Countess, another former gaming vessel, is scheduled to join this royal family.

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Every fall, the most attended free public art event in the world turns Grand Rapids, Mich., — once the butt of jokes for its sleepy status as Michigan’s second city — into a hip, cutting-edge community that celebrates creativity.

ArtPrize, an unorthodox international arts competition takes over this city of 196,000 for 19 days in late September and early October bringing in more than 500,000 visitors.

An inclusive, grass-roots approach sets ArtPrize apart. It thumbs its nose at typical highly curated art competitions by putting out an open call for artists here and abroad. Anyone over age 18 can apply. And any venue within ArtPrize boundaries can offer to showcase artwork. More than 1,200 works are usually displayed, most within a walkable three square miles downtown. Museums and public buildings are included, of course, but also shops, hotels, restaurants. Past ArtPrize venues have included odd places to find art, like an auto body shop, a Laundromat, hospital, a police station and the Department of Corrections. All must remain open daily — even corporate offices normally closed to the public — with no admission charge.

ArtPrize isn’t for art snobs, just your selfie-snapping average joes. Families turn out, parents pushing strollers while kids run around outdoor sculptures. Girlfriends on a getaway mill about, choosing their favorite works. Multigenerations come together, grandparents taking a toddler by the hand for a closer look at a painting. Couples make a day of it, some in wedding clothes posing with outsized murals to mark their special day.

A half million dollars in prize money is awarded, including a $200,000 prize awarded entirely by public vote and another $200,000 prize awarded by a jury of art experts. Any artist working in any medium from anywhere in the world can participate. Works fall into four categories: two-dimensional, 3-D, installations dependent on the site where they appear, and time-based works.

The money is nice, of course, but artists also enter ArtPrize for the exposure and come home with commissions. Sometimes they stick around their creations, passing out business cards and chatting up visitors.

How did a world-class event in the art world end up in Grand Rapids, Mich.? Perhaps its history as a furniture-manufacturing center created a culture of craftsmanship. And it never hurts to have wealthy families supporting the arts.

One such family member launched the first ArtPrize in 2009. Entrepreneur Rick DeVos, whose grandfather co-founded the Amway company, wanted a populist art competition with the world’s largest art prize. So many people showed up that first year restaurants ran out of food by the first Sunday and had to close. Hotels ran out of rooms by the next Sunday.

The inaugural prize winner, Brooklyn artist Ran Ortner, had been living on ramen noodles, his phone turned off for nonpayment. Now he has six employees and his works have hung in the United Nations and the World Trade Center. His winning entry, the painting “Open Water No. 24,” remains in Grand Rapids hanging above the bar at Reserve Wine & Food, a restaurant owned by the DeVos family.

The works of several former contestants still can be seen in the city. Several outdoor murals remain from past years, including the Acton Building’s “Metaphorest” a 40-foot-tall mosaic mural by Chicago artist Tracy Van Duinen. “Sweeper’s Clock,” a video showing long piles of garbage being swept to form the hands of an analog clock face, has been added to the permanent collection at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

Grand Rapids has plenty of other works of art not related to ArtPrize. The Grand Rapids Art Museum has more than 5,000 and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum has historical photographs and artifacts and serves as an ArtPrize venue. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, one of the few ArtPrize venues outside of downtown, sits on 158 acres on the northeast side of the city. Among more than 200 sculptures in the permanent collection, the 24-foot-tall “The American Horse” attracts the most attention. Partly inspired by the work of Leonardo da Vinci, artist Nina Akamu formed two casts of a figure of a horse, this one and another in Milan, Italy.

In the heart of downtown, the urban park Rosa Parks Circle comprises three circular forms designed by Maya Lin, creator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Alexander Calder’s 42-ton metal sculpture “La Grande Vitesse” in his signature red stands in a plaza outside the Grand Rapids City Hall.

A festival atmosphere prevails during ArtPrize with musical performances and buskers on the city’s iconic Blue Bridge, a 19^th-century railroad bridge turned pedestrian pathway over the Grand River. Art lectures and panel discussions, as well as screenings of feature-length films, fill out the ArtPrize schedule of events.

And budding artists can make their own art in a variety of hands-on programs for all ages, including the littlest visitors. Who knows, some of these tiny hands may shape a prize-winning entry one day.

Information:

ArtPrize

Experience Grand Rapids, 800-678-9859

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And the amusement was mine, one shared with fellow passengers as scenery unfolded around every bend in the river. Red-tile roofs topped white stucco buildings of quinta — wine estates — and villages popped up along the banks, church spires rising from their centers.

I was aboard the Emerald Radiance. Unlike Emerald Waterway’s other ships, this one is smaller, 112 passengers instead of 182, to fit inside the Douro’s dams. It passed through five on our eight-day “Secrets of the Douro” itinerary beginning and ending in Porto near the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean.

Such a voyage wasn’t possible a generation ago. The Douro had been a wild river flowing through a narrow passage cut by wind and rain, a raging torrent during high water, too shallow for ships when the water subsided. The dams, built from the 1960s to 1980s for flood control and hydroelectric power, tamed it. Now resembling a necklace of lakes, the river is navigable for 130 miles, all the way east to the Spanish border.

In 2001 a chunk of the river valley became a UNESCO World Heritage site, not only for its importance as a wine region but also for its dramatic landscape and historic structures. Excursions from the ship touched on several more UNESCO sites.

In Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, a walking tour led me through a web of lanes and alleys and down the pedestrian Santa Catarina where many stores occupy buildings in the art nouveau style. I stopped to take photos at the belle époque Majestic Café where J.K. Rowling sipped coffee during her stay in Porto and dreamed up Harry Potter stories. Around the corner a queue stretched more than a block outside the entrance to the Lello & Irmao bookstore with lavish art nouveau furnishings and a staircase said to have inspired one depicted at Hogwarts in the Potter films. The 1906 building has become a mecca for Potter fans.

River ships arriving and departing Porto pass under the double deck Luis I iron bridge made by a student of Gustave Eiffel in 1887. The master himself, creator the Eiffel Tower, designed another of Porto’s five bridges, but it is Luis I that gets the most attention. Daring — or foolish — youths jump off its lower deck into the river, a spectacle best seen from the adjacent Ribeira neighborhood of pastel-hue houses and arcades. Waterfront cafes, bars and shops make Ribeira a popular spot to hang out, day or night.

Our walking tour transitioned to a motor coach to cross the bridge to the opposite bank of the Douro and the “new town,” Vila Nova de Gaia or simply Gaia. To avoid taxes in Porto, the Douro Valley’s earliest winemakers kept storehouses here to be close to Atlantic where sailing vessels from around the world docked.

About half of the wines made from grapes grown along the Douro are table wines. The other half of the region’s grape harvest becomes port. About 48 hours into their fermentation, grape spirit — 77 proof — is added giving port a high alcohol content.

The Douro River Valley ranks as the oldest demarcated wine-growing region in the world, established in 1756. Only fortified wines from the valley’s eastern vineyards can legally be called port, a name protected within the European Union.

Wine producers still keep warehouses in Gaia. Our group stopped for a tour and tasting at Taylor’s Port founded in 1692. One of the managers led us through the port-making process, telling us about three of Taylor’s up-river vineyards where grapes are still stomped by foot. Port comes in several varieties — including tawny, ruby, rosé —consumed with dessert or as a nightcap. White port, such as the chip port we sampled at Taylor’s, is drier and served as an aperitif.

Portugal’s other well-known wine, Mateus Rosé, also comes from the Douro River Valley near the town of Vila Real where our group visited the 18^th-century Mateus Palace. Its fanciful exterior, with baroque towers and flourishes, appears on the label of the wine’s iconic, flask-shaped bottle. But that’s where the palace’s connection to this sweet, slightly fizzy wine ends. The Count of Mangualde, who owns the palace and resides there part of the year, does not make Mateus Rosé but collects a royalty for the image on every label.

The connection between wine and the Douro kept popping up all week during my cruise. In the village of Pinhao, the ship’s tour escorts led us on a walk to the old train station where 24 blue-and-white tiles from the 1930s illustrate wine cultivation and production. Passengers had a chance to try tile painting in a workshop on board, one of several Emerald Radiance activities that also included a presentation by “Cork Lady” Paula Guimaraes. Most of the world’s supply of cork comes from Portugal harvested from the bark and used not just to seal wine bottles, but for making a variety of products Paula laid out in the Horizon Lounge: wallets, hats, belts, jewelry.

I joined passengers one night for a dinner on shore in the warehouse of the Quinta da Pacheca wine estate. Strolling musicians entertained us as we drank wine and port and feasted on local fare, some dishes incorporating olives and almonds grown on trees alongside vineyards in the valley. The “Almond Capital of Portugal,” Vila Nova de Fox Coa, lies just a few miles from the Douro on the route our excursion took to the Coa Valley Archeological Park.

The world’s largest open-air Paleolithic rock art site encompasses about 50,000 acres at the confluence of the Douro and Coa rivers. Petrogylphs dating back 10,000 to 40,000 years were found here during preliminary work to construct a dam on the Coa in the 1990s. The discovery was kept secret, but when word leaked out preservationists rallied to save the area. UNESCO stepped in, adding it to its list of World Heritage sites in 1998.

But the museum merits a visit for two additional reasons: its location and its architecture. The building stands on a hillside overlooking both river valleys. I walked onto the terrace of the museum café for the week’s best view of steep hillsides terraced with vineyards. A ship slowly cruised the Douro far below, an ant floating through a canyon.

Other Instagram-worthy views presented themselves on the ship’s excursion to Lamego. Our motor coach dropped us at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Remedies perched on a hilltop overlooking the red-tile roofs of the city. Our tour escorts gave us the option to ride the motor coach down to the city center, but encouraged us to tackle the 686 steps and take time to enjoy the view. The stairway is broken up by nine terraces where the now-familiar blue-and-white tiles form murals of religious scenes and statues depict the Stations of the Cross. Changing views of the city below and the sanctuary above kept my camera clicking and in less than an hour I finished the descent, my gimpy knee no worse for the wear. On religious holidays, the faithful make the more difficult climb up the granite stairs, some on their knees.

We put Portugal behind us on an excursion into Spain. Salamanca lay a two-hour drive from where our ship docked at the Spanish border. Yet another UNESCO World Heritage site on our cruise, the Old City deserves its nickname, “The Golden City,” for the tawny sandstone buildings aglow in the midday sun.

Our walking tour led us through the 18^th-century Plaza Mayor with its City Hall and Royal Pavilion, the public market where platters of ham, cheese and olives were passed around for us to sample, and the city’s first university dating back 800 years.

The 33,000 university students in this city of 150,000 give Salamanca a youthful vibe and we were charmed by the music students who performed for us at the end of our tour. Dressed in the medieval costumes of troubadours, they assembled in a shady courtyard to play traditional songs on guitars, accordion and tambourine.

We’d reached the farthest navigable section of the river at the Spanish border, so the Emerald Radiance turned around for its return to Porto giving passengers a second opportunity to go through the locks on the Douro’s five dams. This exercise never failed to draw a crowd to the sundeck. Even passengers like me who are fairly clueless about mechanical things are impressed by these feats of engineering and thankful for their existence. Without the dams, a river cruise across this colorful swath of Portugal would not be possible.

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Fields still laced with land mines. Rampant unemployment. Young people fleeing to bigger cities to find a better life. Suzi Petrijevcanin wasn’t complaining, just telling it like it is to passengers on Viking River Cruises who’d booked a visit to her home as part of their shore excursion.

“We call you the boat people,” she laughs.

The Lower Danube flows through Eastern Europe’s former Communist countries. Bookended by beauty spots in Budapest and Bucharest, the stretch of river is short on fairy-tale castles and romantic vistas, long on buildings pockmarked by bullet holes, ugly Communist-era housing projects, monstrous people palaces built by egomaniacal tyrants.

Passengers who book this itinerary tend to have an intellectual bent; well-traveled lifelong learners who’ve been to other countries in Europe and want to satisfy their curiosity about this part of the world. Eastern Europe’s complicated history unravels in on-board lectures, walking tours, motor coach excursions and visits to the homes of people like Suzi.

Viking’s Eastern Europe itinerary takes in Croatia and Serbia — formerly parts of Yugoslavia — as well as Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, once all but closed to the West by the Iron Curtain. It combines a cruise on the Lower Danube with nights in upscale hotels before and after. My ship, the Lif, served as a comfortable base for exploring present-day life in the countries of Eastern Europe as it relates to their dark history.

City and Country Life in Hungary

The Danube divides Buda and Pest, two sections of the Hungarian capital. We began in Buda with a walking tour around Trinity Square and gothic Matthias Church with its eye-catching Zsolnay tile roof. Behind it the white turrets of Fisherman’s Bastion rise above the Danube. Named for the fishermen who defended this stretch of the city walls in medieval times, it now serves as a viewing terrace.

From this perch, we had a great view of the Pest side of the city and the massive neo-gothic Parliament building reflected in the river. A funicular leads down to the riverfront and the Chain Bridge, the oldest of Budapest’s seven spans. Damaged by the Nazis, the unusual suspension bridge was rebuilt in its 1840 design, though enlarged for vehicle traffic.

Crossing over to the Pest side, we came to one of the most haunting displays of the city’s tragic history: row after row of shoes, replicated in bronze, lining the riverfront. This sculpture, “Shoes on the Danube,” memorializes Jews forced to remove their footwear here before they were executed by fascists, their bodies dumped in the river. Visitors place stones and flowers in the shoes, silently snapping photos.

During World War II, more than 80 percent of the city’s buildings were damaged before forces of the Soviet Union pushed out the Nazis. Then, in 1956, the Soviets crushed a revolt, sending 40,000 Hungarians to camps for “re-education.” Another 300,000 fled the country.

Cruise passengers have several opportunities to visit the Hungarian countryside. Godollo Royal Palace and Gardens, largest palace in Hungary, lies just 40 minutes from the capital. An excursion to a farm and equestrian show taught us about Hungary’s tradition of horsemanship that began when nomadic warriors thundered across the steppes from Asia.

Conflict Between Croats and Serbs

Tour guides in Croatia and Serbia, home visits and on-board lectures help passengers wrap their heads around the complicated struggles between Croats, who are mostly Catholic, and Serbs, mostly Eastern Orthodox. But the conflict isn’t so much over religion as it is over territory and resentments rooted in struggles centuries old.

En route to Suzi’s house in Croatia, our tour guide took us through the Danube port of Vukovar, 90 percent destroyed in the 1990s during what Croatia calls the Homeland War (in Serbia it’s the Civil War). It started when Croatia declared independence from Serbian majority Yugoslavia. In Vukovar, more than 200 Croats who had taken refuge in a hospital were executed.

After listening to such tales of inhumanity, it was a comfort to sit in Suzi’s warm home and talk about life in Croatia today. While western Croatia thrives from tourism along the Adriatic Coast, eastern Croatia along the Danube still struggles. Once the nation’s breadbasket, Suzi said landmines left over from the war make tilling the fertile soil a challenge.

We learn the Serbian side of the story in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. Unlike most of Eastern Europe, Serbia does not belong to the European Union so has not benefited from its economic assistance. Ugly Soviet-era apartment buildings blight the skyline. Other buildings still bear bombed-out walls.

Our tour guide gave us an overview of Serbian conflicts. A Serbian nationalist assassinated an Austro-Hungarian archduke, causing Austria to declare war on Serbia and starting World War I. During World War II, Josip Broz Tito led Yugoslav guerrillas, and later became leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, holding together a coalition of non-aligned nations during the Cold War. The breakup of Yugoslavia began after his death in 1980.

But as in Croatia, Serbia’s struggles began much earlier. Situated at the confluence of the Danube and Sawa rivers, Belgrade is at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe and has been destroyed and rebuilt 20 times.

A bright spot in Belgrade is the Church of St. Sava, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world. Begun in 1935, construction halted during World War II and under Communism. Work resumed in the 1980s, with funds largely from Serbians living abroad. Inside under its 100-foot diameter dome, visitors learn some of the practices of the Serbian Orthodox religion: only human voices are allowed (chants, no organ), the altar must face east, worshippers stand (no pews) during services and the church follows the Julian calendar so Christmas comes on January 7.

Iron Gates to Bulgaria and Romania

The Danube continues east toward the Black Sea passing through the Iron Gates, a gorge between Romania on the north, Serbia on the south.

We pass an onion-domed monastery, now a convent, poking from shore. On the public address system, our cruise director tells us to watch for a nun on the balcony. If she waves to a passenger, legend has it the passenger will find enduring love within a year. A woman veiled in black appears, raising a hand in greeting.

A few minutes later we cruise by a Mount Rushmore-like head of King Decebalus who battled the Romans for freedom for what is now Romania. Carved into the limestone cliffs, it measures more than 140 feet high.

We journey through a lock and dam and the Danube widens. Kayakers skim the surface and fishermen cast lines into the river. Cottages and campgrounds line the shore where people are picnicking and sunbathing on beaches. The red-tile roofs of villages add color to the riverbank. A plume of smoke from a tractor rises from a field.

In Vidin, Bulgaria, passengers make another home visit, this time to learn how to make banitsa, a pastry that’s a staple in every household. Ramona Mihaylova lays out bowls and pans on the granite countertop in the kitchen of her modern home, which could have been plucked from the suburbs of Cincinnati where she and her husband lived for many years before she retired from teaching and they returned to their homeland.

On our last morning on the river, we boarded a motor coach for Bucharest, capital of Romania and “Paris of the East” for its wide boulevards, parks and mix of architecture styles and grand monuments, including an Arch of Triumph.

The night before, our cruise director gave us his story of life in Bucharest under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He told us he grew up with anti-Western propaganda meant to explain away harsh economic conditions. Teachers told him blue jeans cause skin cancer and the Western diet was unhealthy, all while food shortages were rampant. Electricity was shut down for an hour every night and apartments could not be heated to more than 57 degrees.

We saw the main reason for these restrictions when we toured the Palace of Parliament, a permanent example of Ceausescu’s megalomania. He bankrupted his country to build this ostentatious people palace, the biggest administration building in the world after the Pentagon. Covering nearly 4 million square feet, marble-clad rooms drip with gold leaf. Our one-hour tour covered just 3 percent of them.

Ceausescu never got to enjoy his palace. Before it was completed, a wave of revolutions swept across Eastern Europe in 1989. In December that year, Romania’s military sided with protesters, arrested the tyrant who, after a quick trial, was executed on Christmas Day.

A few months later the Berlin Wall came down in Germany.

The Iron Curtain had fallen.

For further information, visit Viking River Cruises or call, 800-706-1483

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Heirs to one of America’s biggest fortunes in the 19^th century, they lived in mansions in Manhattan and on lavish estates in Newport, Rhode Island. But little Georgie Vanderbilt, a bachelor devoted to his mother, spent his money buying up land in the wilds of western North Carolina and set out building a home where he and mama could breathe clean mountain air. Family members scoffed.

Boy, did he show them.

On Christmas Eve, 1895, George Washington Vanderbilt II invited family and friends to his almost-finished home for the holidays. Then, as today, the road leading to the house winds through three miles of pastures and woodlands. Just when visitors think their driver has lost his way, the road ascends a hill, curves right and enters a clearing. Carriages carrying Vanderbilt’s guests stopped. Heads turned. Jaws dropped. What they saw — and what visitors on shuttle buses now see — was a massive residence built in the style of French chateaux with the Blue Ridge Mountains rising behind it. With 250 rooms, it was the largest private residence in America.

But the Biltmore has become much more than just some rich guy’s house. George’s descendants transformed it from a private Gilded Age estate to an attraction welcoming more than a million visitors a year. In addition to the house, Biltmore Estate has two hotels, a spa, shops and restaurants, a winery and a roster of outdoor activities. Though the property near Asheville, N.C., remains in the family, no one with Vanderbilt blood lives in the big house. It has become a museum showcasing art, books, carpets and furniture George purchased on buying trips to Europe.

Shades of ‘Downton Abbey’

With 33 bedrooms, George and his wife Edith, whom he married in 1898 less than two years after his mother died, had plenty of room to entertain. They did so in true “Downton Abbey” fashion with from 25 to 45 servants attending to their needs and those of their guests.

Members of the Gilded Age leisure class changed clothes six or seven times a day depending on their activities on the estate: afternoon tea, a bit of shooting or fishing, horseback riding, croquet and walks in the woods before a seven to ten-course formal dinner. Ladies’ maids styled hair, tended to makeup and manicures and assisted with dressing, often cinching a corset to an 18-inch waistline.

A behind-the-scenes tour gives a glimpse of upstairs-downstairs life, including a visit to the two-story butler’s pantry where china, crystal and silver — 40 serving pieces per person at dinner — were stored. Should a guest desire a bit of caviar in the middle of the night, a bell summoned a servant on duty around the clock.

Another behind-the-scenes tour takes visitors to the roof of the Biltmore where the superimposed initials GV appear along the copper ridgeline. From here visitors get an up-close look at the turrets, balconies and gargoyles designed by architect Robert Morris Hunt who fashioned this American castle in Indiana limestone. They also look out over the vast acreage of the estate, 8,000 acres today, down from the 125,000 George bought. Acclaimed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York City’s Central Park, was dismayed when he laid eyes on the worn-out farmland. Vanderbilt persuaded him to replant it in formal gardens and woodlands to support the estate’s timber business. After George died of complications from an appendectomy in 1914, Edith sold some of the land to the government as national forest.

The Vanderbilts had one child, Cornelia, born at the Biltmore. She married an English aristocrat and had two sons who inherited the property. George and Edith’s great-grandson and great-granddaughter now manage Biltmore Estate.

The city of Asheville, N.C., asked the family to open Biltmore to the public as a means of boosting tourism to the area during the Depression. The first visitors arrived in 1930.

Touring the Big House

Today’s most popular tour, a 90-minute audio tour, takes visitors through most of the important rooms, including the glass-roofed winter garden and the banquet hall with triple fireplace and ceiling seven stories high.

Two paintings by Renoir hang in the breakfast room and John Singer Sargent’s large portraits of Olmstead and Hunt grace a wall of the second-floor living hall. French doors open from the covered loggia to a 90-foot-long gallery hung with Flemish tapestries from the 1530s.

Nearly half of the bookish Vanderbilt’s 22,000-volume collection fills shelves of the two-story library. A chess set and games table once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. The music room was not completed in George’s lifetime. During World War II Edith allowed the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., to store art there to safeguard it from possible attack.

One of the first bowling alleys in a private residence is downstairs, the pins set by servants. The indoor pool had underwater lighting. Visitors walk through the kitchens where a dozen workers assisted the chef. Dumbwaiters transported food upstairs.

A bachelor’s wing was reserved for unmarried gentlemen who could come and go at all hours without disturbing the ladies. It had a billiard room and gun room where guests could select weapons from Vanderbilt’s collection for hunting on his estate. Men gathered for after-dinner cigars, pipes and brandy in the smoking room.

Beyond the House

In George’s time, the estate was very much a working farm and dairy that delivered milk throughout the area. The farm remains, supplying chefs in Biltmore restaurants with salad greens, berries and herbs as well as poultry and eggs from free-range chickens, beef and lamb from Angus cattle and White Dorper sheep. Even some of the grapes from the estate vineyard become wine made in the winery. Tastings are included in the Biltmore admission ticket.

The winery sits in the estate’s Antler Village complex about five miles from Biltmore House. The village has two lodgings, the Village Hotel and the four-star Inn on Biltmore Estate with spa and white-tablecloth dining. Contemporary American cuisine is served in the village’s Bistro, pub fare in Cedric’s Tavern. Deerpark Restaurant, between the village and the house, is known for its Sunday brunch buffet and Saturday Taste of the South lunch. Back at the house, Southern comfort food is served in the former stable, tables set up in the horse stalls.

Visitors find opportunities for shopping at both the house and village, including a toy store, garden shop and year-round Christmas store. Biltmore has a resort side, too, with outdoor activities such as horseback riding, biking, clay shooting, fly fishing, Segway tours, a Land Rover driving school, kayaking and river rafting. Or visitors can transport themselves back to George’s time by taking a carriage ride.

Details

Information: 800-411-3812, biltmore.com

Tickets: $40 to $75 depending on season and advance purchase. Children 9 and younger free, ages 10-16 are 50 percent off the adult price. Audio tours $10.98, guided tours $22-$150.

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