notamermaid

Treacherous conditions today for driving and no way would I try and go up a hill to a castle today. And sun deck staircases are not the best place to be right now either I should think. Yes, I am still not convinced that winter sailings are a good idea. The lock at Iffezheim will be closed almost a full day tomorrow. The reason is that the right chamber is not usable due to the accident last year. The left chamber now needs work doing so there will be no river traffic through that lock tomorrow. According to a local newspaper the lock at Gambsheim is also closed tomorrow but I have no details on that. Edit: If you are interested, this is the notification for skippers as issued by the German authorities: Oh, and the farmers are still busy with protests, a few days ago Alsatian farmers crossed the river and joined the German farmers in solidarity. But as of now I have not heard about disruptions that would directly impact cruising, just road blocks and demonstrations on a minor scale so excursions should be okay as well. There have been solidarity protests by commercial river traffic (it is about Diesel subsidies) but so far this sounds to have been minor. There is the hint of flooding again from Basel coming via a few tributaries, indicated also at Maxau gauge. But for now it looks to be a minor one, no big deal. We will look at that again tomorrow or so. notamermaid

Here is a Christmas market that is off the beaten track for river cruisers, but it is on a navigable river, the Neckar in Germany. Stuttgart is a large city with an international airport: https://www.stuttgarter-weihnachtsmarkt.de/en/home/ I have enjoyed Stuttgart in another season. The Christmas market has been recommended to me. notamermaid

The Moselle has much recovered and the water levels are down. Looking really good. This is what the last 31 days at Trier gauge looked like: HSW is the line at which river traffic is suspended. Now the level is around the mean. A good base to start from when the water levels rise again. Yes, a rise will happen again day after tomorrow. 400cm is a given, we will see what that day brings in addition to that. Hopefully all will go well for the ship that is currently sailing on the Rhine and heading towards Remich in Luxembourg. I have never read about itineraries on the Moselle in winter and I do not think river cruise ships use winter harbours in the area. So I checked why the Viva Tiara is heading towards the Moselle. It turns out that she is the ship on which a tourism promotion event in Luxembourg will be held. This is it: https://www.acl.lu/en-us/news/voyages-loisirs/cruiseevent-remich-2024-a-bord-du-viva-tiara notamermaid

Now that is certainly newsworthy. Joking aside, we all assume that the Netherlands is very flat, which it is, but there are some real proper hills close to the Belgian and German borders. Up there many live at a higher altitude than me here and are bound to have more snow than me. Not saying where I am but parts of Limburg province are over 100m high with the highest hill being 322.4 metres. If anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Netherlands) notamermaid

Let us kind of bring forward the flooding topic from December and have a look how that went. Koblenz: River traffic was halted when the level went over the HSW line. With the Middle Rhine valley on substantial flooding there was the risk of a ban being issued at Cologne. This is the timeline at Cologne: You can see that the HSW line is not there, the level stayed just below it, peaking at 823cm. Seven centimetres only, the ban happens at 830cm. So the two Viking ships, the Alruna and the Tialfi both were able to complete the inaugural winter itinerary for Viking. By the way, I find the itinerary a touch more appealing than the standard "Rhine Getaway". We now have cold weather, snow, and, as you can see, favourable water level. The hills are covered with dusting of white, that must look nice in the Rhine Gorge. So both those ships are running on itineraries throughout winter but they will pass other river cruise ships along the way. A few. Oh, and not all have returned to their winter harbours yet. Two Viking ships may have even been delayed in getting to Cologne-Niehl due to that lock incident on the Main. But they have arrived and the dock looks quite full... Currently the Avalon Imagery II is in Cologne and passing the Viking Alruna as I write: notamermaid

Which reminds me... Hi in German with the proper spelling and the German word pronounced a it should be is "Hai" and it means "shark". @Daisi I enjoyed the snow and we got some more yesterday, almost a mini storm. So it is still on hills and on the ground almost down to the waterfront in some places. Great to look at, I hope the current few river cruisers are enjoying it. Weather reports unfortunately now say that we will get more snow and really icy conditions with the temperatures dropping. I am sure you have even more wintry weather though. notamermaid

Not to worry, I meant my fellow Germans. I know Americans use the hi a lot. A lot of people say that English is easier to learn at the beginning and you can form coherent, correct, sentences more quickly than in German. I tend to agree. notamermaid

Thank you to mention that. I still think Viking does not have this quite right with the marketing. Or somehow at least it does not come across that markets are not open everywhere from 20 November or so. This past season we have also a mention in the Rhine thread that the Christmas market in Cochem on the Moselle closed on 17th December and Viking had the visit scheduled for the 20th (it was then cancelled at short notice). I enquired with Cochem tourism information centre and was assured that this was a one-off and 2024 will see the regular dates again (do check online in summer). I still think though that Viking could have been more vigilant and checked the early closure, which had been published online by Cochem. 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