ESCORTED TOURS TOUR & CRUISE COMBOS DESTINATIONS


I can’t claim to be a born-and- bred Londoner in the Bow bells, rhyming slang, never- been-north-of-Watford sense, but having lived in or near the capital all my life, I’d hope to know its landmarks pretty well. Yet an evening cruise down the


Thames recently proved just how wrong I was: it turns out you can take as many strolls along the South Bank as you like, but only when you get onto the river do you see London from a totally new perspective. That’s where the growing phenomenon of tour-and-cruise combos comes in. They combine the best bits of a cruise with the best of an adventure on land, playing to the strengths of each region and giving passengers a better all-round experience.


1


VIETNAM, CAMBODIA AND THE MEKONG With epic waterways cutting their way through


one fascinating country after another, Asia is ideal territory for sightseeing on both land and water. The popularity of such itineraries has prompted Wendy Wu Tours to expand the cruise product in its 2016-17 Southeast Asia brochure with new Ayeyarwady options in Burma and a flagship 21-day Mekong Odyssey through Vietnam and Cambodia. Marketing manager Ben Briggs


says: “Land-and-cruise itineraries continue to be very popular, not just in China but Vietnam too.


The few days spent on the river act as a relaxing break between busier days of touring on land either side.” The 21-day tour offers a good


grounding in Vietnamese culture before even embarking on the river, with sightseeing in fast- paced Hanoi, Halong Bay and Hue, plus a cookery class in Hoi An and tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City. Only on day 10 do guests take


to the water for a seven-day Mekong cruise through floating market Cai Be, past tribal villages and Cambodian countryside, ending in Siem Reap to explore Angkor Wat. Book it: Mekong Odyssey starts at £4,790, including all flights, meals, visas, accommodation and entrance fees, for departures from September to November. wendywutours.co.uk


2


GREECE AND AEGEAN SEA There’s no arguing the appeal of the sun-kissed


Greek islands, but holidaymakers who spend all their time hopping between picture-postcard harbours and beachfront tavernas risk letting the wealth of culture pass them by. The most satisfying answer,


surely, is to do both, with a tour that ticks off icons of the ancient world while allowing time to relax on the calm waters of the Aegean Sea. Trafalgar’s Best of Greece tour comes with an option to include a


four-day Aegean cruise. The tour starts in Athens with the Acropolis and 1896 Olympic stadium, then takes in mainland highlights from Agamemnon’s Royal Palace and site of the first Olympic Games in 776BC, to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and ancient battleground Thermopylae, home of the famous Spartan-v-Persian clash recently retold in the action movie 300. After eight days on land, board a ship in Athens and cruise to Mykonos, Kusadasi in Turkey (with an optional excursion to Ephesus), then Rhodes, Crete and Santorini to get a taste of Greece’s most popular island destinations. Book it: Trafalgar’s Best of Greece plus four-day Aegean Cruise costs from £1,662, excluding flights, with 11 nights’ B&B accommodation, specialist guides, and dinner at an olive farm in Olympia. trafalgar.com


single trip, but pairing one of its iconic waterways with a classic tourist route is certainly a good start. Options are as varied as cruising the Brahmaputra River through Assam or the languid backwaters of Kerala, but Titan has chosen the daddy of them all, the Ganges, for its new Golden Triangle and Ganges itinerary on board Uniworld’s all-suite Ganges Voyager II.


3 GANGES AND


GOLDEN TRIANGLE India is too big and too diverse to squeeze into a


Not only will passengers get


the best possible introduction to India through the Lutyens- designed monuments of New Delhi, Taj Mahal in Agra, and the colourful sights of Pink City Jaipur, but they can also cruise the Lower Ganges. The river passes former British settlements and Bengali farmlands, with excursions to see the impressive architecture of Bengali mosque Hooghly Imambara at Bandel, the temples of Kalna’s Rajbari complex, a walking tour of arty village Matiari, and a visit to colourful Mayapur, birthplace of the Hare Krishna movement founder. Book it: India’s Golden Triangle and the Sacred Ganges starts at £6,049 in November 2016, including flights, five nights’ hotel accommodation and a seven- night full-board cruise including shore excursions, transfers and Titan’s home departure service. titantravel.co.uk


4


RHINE AND GLACIER EXPRESS The popularity of European river cruises


has never been higher, offering unrivalled access to the very heart of the continent’s most charming cities, but what if you want to explore further than a shore excursion allows? That’s why Riviera Travel


introduced guided extensions on its Blue Danube; Douro, Oporto & Salamanca; and Rhine Cruise to Switzerland itineraries (£399


12 November 2015 travelweekly.co.uk 45


TOP TIP Combining a


tour with a cruise is a great way to


introduce clients to cruise holidays


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