notamermaid

Oh, that is a pity. notamermaid

I was going to mention the Alsace cruise option but I am actually not sure that we mean the same thing. This is the one I find interesting: https://www.croisieuroperivercruises.com/cruise/marne-rhine-canal-lagarde-strasbourg-port-to-port-cruise-2-classic#plus The Arzwiller Inclined Plane is fascinating, have been there. Burgundy has been recommended to me for a holiday. Looks intriguing what they offer as a barge cruise. But I think I would prefer to see the town of Beaune. notamermaid

Just a couple of ships are actually on itineraries now, a few more ships are still on their way to winter harbours. But let us have a quick look anyway at what the river is doing in Germany. The Danube area was partly on flooding status over New Year, but the situation has much improved. Pfelling gauge is at 432cm and Passau gauge is at 491cm. That is good. Room for snow melt is needed in a few weeks time. The year did not start well for one river cruise company. During the flooding the Arosa Mia was scheduled to go on an itinerary. She was supposed to leave on 3 January for a four day trip from Passau. Engine problems caused the ship to be able to sail only slowly and the passengers could not have the cruise as planned. Part of it needed to be done by coach and the high water levels did not help with the more difficult navigation either. According to an online German website, the passengers got a 50 percent voucher for a future cruise. notamermaid

The Douro is 897km long but navigable for the ships of dimensions up to 83m and 11.4 metres only for 210km says German Wikipedia, other sources give it as 213km. The Main is 527km long and navigable for 388km (a few kilometres more for very small vessels). Both rivers have been altered to allow modern ships to sail but for whichever reason the Spanish authorities did not go for the lock and dam system to the extent that the Portuguese did. The geography of the Douro means that it is fast-flowing in its middle section so that may have played a part, who knows. The Romans must have used the Douro for shipping (there is evidence of it) but over the centuries it seems that the wish was not there to constantly expand navigation and maintain it. There is a canal but it lost its importance and was closed down. The Main has always had that importance and with advancing technology was altered to become what it is today, a busy waterway in its own right and with the construction of the Main Danube Canal of vital importance if you want to cross Europe without setting foot on dry land/using lorries to bridge the gap. The idea that you could use the Main to get to the Danube via smaller rivers is 1,200 years old. notamermaid

The Elbe kept the residents along its banks busy till the end of the year and into this new year with its high levels. So let us have a quick look now. Dresden: The situation has much improved this last week but the Lower Elbe is still draining off the excess water, so we still see elevated levels from Magdeburg downstream to (almost) Hamburg. But no river cruise ships are sailing or about to sail in winter. Or are they? With a few ships sailing on the Rhine and just a couple on the Danube, may there be an itinerary running on the Elbe, perhaps by a German company? We will try and establish that. notamermaid

Wow, that is quite strict in Quebec. Many people here frown upon too many "Anglizismen", English words that are used instead of German ones and ever more often unnecessarily or confusingly. I have read of one or two times only when a company was admonished, not sure that there was a fine involved. That was when it went so far as to confuse the consumer "beyond tolerance", as I will put it. I tolerate a lot but will not accept "hi" when being addressed. notamermaid

Indeed. The Main river was turned into what we call a "Großschifffahrtsstraße", that is a waterway with design, depth and dimensions that are suitable for large barges and tankers. Large locks. That as a by-product enables river cruise ships to use the Main with ease. Apart from the low bridges that are a bit of a pain. notamermaid

@Host Jazzbeau Thank you for pinning the water levels 2024. Here is to perfect sailing conditions for all, on all waterways, lakes, ponds and puddles, much fun, good food and drink and lots of fantastic memories for them to take home. Cheers! 🍷 [holding actual glass of red wine and toasting in direction of "my" river]. notamermaid

That is nice to read. They do say the Moselle and the Douro are similar but from what others have said and what I can tell from photos, the Douro does have the more spectacular scenery. What the Douro and the Main share is the fact that they both flow from East to West. The Main is quite a bit shorter and contrary to the Douro only flows through one country. Navigation on the Main for commercial traffic of note and river cruising is done on many more kilometres than on the Douro. Ships can also be much longer on the Main. notamermaid

Here is the thread on the Elbe river for 2024. Join us again this year with comments and tips - not just for this magnificent river making its journey from the Czech Republic all the way to Hamburg in Germany and to the North Sea but also the connected land portions like Prague and Berlin. Safe travels. notamermaid

Hello everyone, here is the thread on the Danube for 2024. We will look again at the weather and most importantly the river levels. Join us again this year with your comments and tips and share your excitement about cruising on this European river that flows through many countries on its long journey East. Safe travels. notamermaid

Greetings from the Rhine valley. Here is the thread for 2024 for everything related to the water levels of the Rhine and bits of information on the river. Join us again with your comments and share your excitement about upcoming trips on this major European river. Safe travels. notamermaid

I struggled through Latin a bit, it was alright for the first two years but then I kind of lost interest when it got more challenging. Still, knowing Latin got me a job offer that I nearly took, but then I decided on a different job. The one where I got to know Jim from New York over the phone. A history teacher of mine told us in class once that he had met a priest on a train journey. Their only common language was Latin so they conversed in that. notamermaid

I'm tellin' ya, German is much easier than English as regards spelling! Few things that are a hassle, like Kirche and Kirsche, which is a challenge if you are a Rhinelander like me. The ss and ß are still awkward but learnable and there are a few other annoying things. A few homonyms that differ in spelling like Leib and Laib, wieder and wider, but nothing like in English. Okay, some rules are annoying and have changed since I was at school. We have this problem with capital letter or not... The real challenge remains der die das, that is the definite articles, for foreigners. Always fun to get your own back with the English for the spelling challenges when you tell them it is "das Band" but it can be "der Band", just depends on what you mean. Ha! [Sorry, my mean streak]. After trying to figure out English and giving up on French (for a few years), learning Spanish was a welcome relief, as the spelling is so consistent. notamermaid

I can still hear that sentence in my head after all those years, of my colleague phoning from New York. I would pick up the receiver, two seconds silence then that sound of wind going over the ocean and coming to your ear - typical of long distance phone calls then - and then the words: "Hi, this is Jim, I have gotten a faaax." Fax really sounded that long of a word. notamermaid

Full disclosure. I did not know the English word until I wanted to write about it in the context here. I put the German "Dalbe" into the online dictionary. I think we should have some fun with that in the 2024 thread (yes, language nerd part of brain activated). notamermaid

When I learnt English there was always an exception to the rule - when there was a rule. Then you get to sixteen and they tell you that over the pond the English is slightly different, with different words. And then you get to speak British English in Britain finally and the British do not all sound like your teacher... My teacher never called me "Love", what that shopkeeper in London did. notamermaid

Yup, it is the "receive". Not the first time that I think a second pair of eyes like was standard before printing presses and journalists were "computer guys and girls I can do it all alone type" would have come in handy. Not that it matters that much but one should keep standards up. Much easier to keep folk like me busy and frustrated who had to learn this from scratch... Happened to me at work many years ago. Wrote an important letter. Read it three times. Passed it on to my boss. He found a mistake, completely obvious one. Annoyed with myself. Comment from boss just what I said above - the second pair of eyes. notamermaid

Snow! Well, seeing so little of it, I got quite excited over the one centimetre that stayed on the ground last night. I got surprised by the sudden snowfall and turned round and went back home as our pavement got icy. So I put my boots with the thick soles on and went shopping. I read that Britain is getting really cold temperatures and snow. Not too bad here, may get a bit of snow on Monday but the temperatures should not drop far in the Rhine valley. Our river levels are going down well and also the hard hit areas are finally improving. A bit of uncertainty in what will happen during the week but all in all the rivers should stay below unpleasant levels. I have this niggling feeling that, seeing that we have saturated ground, we will get flooding again, either in January or February. For this coming week I can look forward to being proven wrong. Back into the warm boots and off to go shopping, there is a shop that has got these amazing offers today and then there is this other shop... snip. Have a good weekend. notamermaid

My pleasure @Pushka. Just to add - 2024 thread coming soon. notamermaid

The barge has been pulled to Aschaffenburg to a shipyard that can do the necessary repairs to the hull and the lock is free again. notamermaid

Not yet. Give me a couple of days. Our esteemed host has promised to put all three up again in a link - a pinned thread - at the top of the river cruising front page. But of course they will appear at the top of the unpinned threads when they are first written. Talk to you there. notamermaid

Time to move on to 2024. So to end just a thank you to all who have contributed or taken an interest in this thread in the background. You have kept me really busy. notamermaid

Time to move on to 2024. So to end just a thank you to all who have contributed or taken an interest in this thread in the background. Special thank you to @steamboats for helping us the past year again as our woman on the ground for the German Danube. And a thank you to @Izengolf for sending reports from much further downstream on this mighty river in Europe. notamermaid

Time to move on to 2024. So to end just a thank you to all who have contributed or taken an interest in this thread in the background. Special thank you to @AnhaltER1960 for helping us the past year again as our man on the ground in the East of Germany. notamermaid