I find myself offering thanks that the spirit moved so many to create such impressive buildings. This cruise prides itself on its "freedom of choice" style of touring. We dock somewhere new each day and at every port of call there are different options. For example, in Nuremberg passengers have the option of wartime history or medieval sights. In Vienna, it's royal history or a trip to the colourful and lunatic Hundertwasser Museum, where boyhood sketches by the eco-crusading Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser hang alongside his better known, later paintings. And then close by there is his wacky Hundertwasserhaus apartment block to photograph it's something of a cultural monument but people still live here.
And although I'm a hardened atheist, most of my Kodak moments have something to do with churches. In the tiny Austrian town of Durnstein, on the banks of the River Danube, a tour of the monastery allows us to see the Easter chapel, out behind the charming Augustinian abbey's church. This is like a grown-up version of the dioramas we made out of shoe boxes at school, featuring life-size balsa cut-outs of religious figures lit by candles in coloured glass shells.
In Nuremberg, I wander in an incredibly beautiful Gothic cathedral, the medieval Frauenkirche from 1275, with candle-lit interiors so dark and romantic I wouldn't have been surprised to find vampires hanging in the corners.
And then in Passau the town's cathedral, St Stephan's, is so baroque it makes the Versace hotel on the Gold Coast look minimalist. The years the principal sculptor spent on his back resulted in a bevy of handsome, bare-chested men with long hair on the walls and ceilings above us. These lovely young men trail golden sheets in a celestial breeze, while angels, cherubs and assorted scholars look on. There's not an inch of unadorned space, everything is gold and caramel or has alabaster skin and it's all set against a surreal, cerulean interior sky.
The spa pool. One of the most luxurious things you can do while on a cruise is float while you're floating. On one day, onshore activities include a 32-kilometre bike ride.
Bikes are unloaded off the back of the boat and a hardy handful of us take off under stormy skies, carrying our raincoats as well as a packed lunch and a photocopied map of our route past tawny fields, vineyards and shrines.
Half an energetic day later, the ship has beaten us to Durnstein, a tourist-friendly hamlet nestled into the hillside next to ruins of a fortress where Richard the Lionheart was apparently held captive about 1192.
Half an hour later I reward myself for the first serious exercise all week (I've been ignoring the small on-board gym) in the spa pool on the sundeck. I'm alone. There's no champagne, sunshine or palm trees. But there are snow-covered river banks, pine trees and a polar breeze blowing while heated water bubbles at the nape of my neck.
Gingerbread and apricot brandy. As one might expect, every port offers opportunities to spend. Disembarkation is not compulsory you can stay on board and drink tea and eat cake all day, every day, if you want. But many prefer to get out and squander their children's inheritance.
Area such as Austria's Wachau Valley offer traditional knitwear, handmade soaps and the local speciality, sweet apricot schnapps.
In cities such as Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava, you can't help but bump into your fellow passengers staring at those Prada shoes or standing, intrigued, outside a dainty cupboard of a shop offering handmade floral perfumes. In Nuremberg it's hard to leave the cafes and not just because it's cold outside: they serve what might be the best gingerbread in the world.
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