Elegant Elbe

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and begin your journey to your embarkation city. Potsdam straddles one of the Elbe’s main tributaries, the Havel River. It boasts a rich history that spans more than 1,000 years. From its humble beginning, Potsdam burgeoned into a royal city, hosting the residences of Prussian and German rulers until the early 1900s. A series of tumultuous events followed, but through it all, Potsdam maintained its prominent stature. And in 1990, with Germany’s reunification, Potsdam was named Brandenburg’s state capital. Today, the city’s regal past lives on in its 16 well-preserved palaces and three elegantly landscaped parks.

Embark your ship and settle into your stateroom. Wittenberg is an important center of culture and learning, known mostly as the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. It was here that the Augustinian monk Martin Luther famously nailed his “95 Theses” against the selling of indulgences to the door of the palace church in 1517, launching the spread of a new religious movement throughout Europe. Wittenberg’s incredibly preserved Old Town was spared destruction during World War II, and so its charming houses remain as they have for centuries, with those in the market square huddled around the beloved statue of Luther.