Apr 7, 2008
On a laptop linked to broadband, I'm again blogging from Europe
From a weeklong cruise on the mighty Rhine, having sampled seven cities in four countries -- Holland (Amsterdam), Germany (Cologne, Cochem, Rudesheim, Heidelberg), France (Strasbourg) and Switzerland (Basel) -- and having marveled at the physical wonders of the "Rhine Gorge" (the Loreley rock, the castles, the fortresses, the wine-producing villages, the almost-vertical vineyards, the locks), we disembarked on Sunday morning in Basel, and immediately took a lightning-like Swiss train to Lucerne, an hour away (for a final three-day stay before returning to the States). And now, in a hotel flanked by the Rigi Mountain, and linked to both broadband and wi-fi, I'm able to resume blogging on my trusty laptop.
It isn't that the towns we visited lacked internet cafes -- even tiny Cochem had one. But the computers at each one of those cafes, as well as those on the ship itself, used European keyboards whose differently-placed keys made a nightmare out of my attempts to touch-type lengthy messages on them. And finding a Wi-Fi location for using my laptop proved difficult; surprisingly, the one Starbucks I visited in Heidelberg had never heard of Wi-Fi; and when you don't have access to a hotel room (many of the hotels are, in fact, Wi-Fi-enabled), which is the condition of a cruise passenger, you aren't able to use your own keyboard and laptop.
The solution for future cruises? One passenger pointed out that if I had a cell phone with Bluetooth capabilities, I could have used that phone to gain access to the Internet. It, in effect, would have provided my laptop with the Wi-Fi I needed. Another pointed out that in Europe, you can rent a device from Vodafone that attaches to your laptop and supplies you with portable internet capabilities, again via telephone technologies. I'd be fascinated to learn whether even other methods are available for going on line from a riverboat, and if readers are aware of them, would be grateful for your comments. But now, back to my daily posts.
Write and read comments about this post.
It isn't that the towns we visited lacked internet cafes -- even tiny Cochem had one. But the computers at each one of those cafes, as well as those on the ship itself, used European keyboards whose differently-placed keys made a nightmare out of my attempts to touch-type lengthy messages on them. And finding a Wi-Fi location for using my laptop proved difficult; surprisingly, the one Starbucks I visited in Heidelberg had never heard of Wi-Fi; and when you don't have access to a hotel room (many of the hotels are, in fact, Wi-Fi-enabled), which is the condition of a cruise passenger, you aren't able to use your own keyboard and laptop.
The solution for future cruises? One passenger pointed out that if I had a cell phone with Bluetooth capabilities, I could have used that phone to gain access to the Internet. It, in effect, would have provided my laptop with the Wi-Fi I needed. Another pointed out that in Europe, you can rent a device from Vodafone that attaches to your laptop and supplies you with portable internet capabilities, again via telephone technologies. I'd be fascinated to learn whether even other methods are available for going on line from a riverboat, and if readers are aware of them, would be grateful for your comments. But now, back to my daily posts.
Write and read comments about this post.
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
