notamermaid

My pleasure, have a great cruise. Lovely to read your excitement. Europe kind of brings me to the Romans, I have written a few posts in the Rhine thread. Kind of keep forgetting though how huge the areas of Europe are that share that Roman history. notamermaid

Just to add: the Elbe is of course far into "Germania Magna" and while it is claimed that Romans did some exploring in the region, this seems to never have been more than brief visits from what I understand. As you have noticed in the past I do not have much charitable stuff to say about the German capital and if we were allowed to choose a city for that purpose Berlin would not even make it into the top ten of choices. While Cologne and Trier were towns of for that age huge proportions, the Spree basin that would 1000 years later have two small settlements (eventually becoming Berlin) was a swamp, quite literally. Biting my lip, staying civil and moving on... From Capital to Capitol and therefore back to (Roman) civilization. St. Maria im Kapitol is a magnificent old church in Cologne and as the name implies literally stands where the Roman Capitol was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Maria_im_Kapitol And from there we will take the car/chariot/walk out of Cologne and head straight - and I mean straight - to Zülpich, which you may have guessed, is another Roman settlement. There we will already be in the Eifel region. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 337cm. notamermaid

Hope so too. Would be a welcome change to all this fretting and the online reports of drought facing us again, etc. And welcome to Cruisecritic! Good to read new names in the past week and see people joining. If you are new to river cruising, I hope you have such an amazing time that you get hooked. Grin. Seriously, from what we have seen over the last few years, very few people do not like it, the vast majority have a great time and some "are addicted" after the first to come back for many more cruises. notamermaid

That is a very unusual combination of choices. Really interesting. Glad you find Viva Cruises an option. Never been on a ship so far but they really look nice when I see them sailing. There are a few good reviews available now. Not sure if you know this one, a poster on another thread gave us a video of this guy: Weather: you may find November a bit chilly for a Texan, I agree. You will normally not be in snow when sailing on the Rhine, November is often still mild with us, but night frost can make morning excursions unpleasant. The November mists are adorable (for me anyway). December brings a bit more snow and potentially really frosty days. notamermaid

Good reaction at Kaub, as expected. Level at 147cm and still rising. notamermaid

Fun fact: Both Hadrian's Wall and the Limes in Germany are part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site Borders of the Roman Empire. I have been to Hadrian's Wall and live not too far from the Limes. If you are very interested in the Romans: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/430/ Past the hills, down that motorway, let us say not too far a drive in the car, the vast "Germania Magna" starts. In river cruise terms this means that the Rhine is part of the old Roman Empire, the Main is mostly not, the Danube mostly is. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 304cm. notamermaid

Rain still coming down over the Danube valley. Pfelling gauge has shot up to 286cm! I hope this will still look as promising in 24 hours. notamermaid

A short addition, digressing just a little from what I had planned to write about, to my post #557. I meant to say of course that Cologne has seven bridges spanning the Rhine. There are many more smaller bridges with some of them crossing bodies of water and one of them is on the Rhine but not spanning it. That is the swing bridge at Deutz harbour. By sheer coincidence I have found out today that after extensive restoration work the bridge will fully reopen (with the exception of some car traffic) on 28 August, i.e Monday: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/politik-und-verwaltung/presse/mitteilungen/26055/index.html The bridge is over 100 years old and the steel ornamented in Art Nouveau style. River cruise ships dock there sometimes. It is here, left side of the photo is the Rhine: The satellite image shows two river cruise ships and my screenshot shows three police launch signalling (Wsp is short for Wasserschutzpolizei). In Cologne some roads still follow exactly the old Roman grid and when you walk along "Hohe Straße", literally the High Street and in Cologne really a shopping street like in Britain, you walk along the old axis South to North, the Cardo Maximus. Anyway, we will instead follow the Via Agrippa out of Cologne via what is now Luxemburger Straße through the Eifel region and that bridge through the swamp. notamermaid

Kaub gauge at 110cm. We may have seen the bottom figure this morning already. If not so then during the next 36 hours. After that the trend is up and for good levels till 4 September, with a reasonable chance for longer than that. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 256cm. I suspect an influence by the locks and dams. But good news is that partly heavy rain has been sweeping over the Danube catchment area. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge better than anticipated. 268cm now, after the 260cm low this morning. Rain has now fully reached the basin of the Neckar and the area near the source of the Danube. notamermaid

Kaub gauge on course, meaning following the forecast. A few clouds with rain have already swept over the middle of Germany. More to come from the Netherlands. A hot, stuffy day today, in towns at least. In other news: on Saturday a young man tried to swim from Neuwied to Weißenthurm on the other bank of the river. A ship alerted the police. The man was apparently not in distress and got safely to the other side but this is a busy river so any attempt to swim across is highly dangerous. For that reason a large rescue operation was launched. Yesterday a fire broke out on a river cruise ship at Gorinchem. Dutch news shows photos of a Viking ship. According to a different report the ship is now back on course to Basel, so sounds relatively minor. notamermaid

Just a quick update as I will be a bit busy tomorrow. Pfelling gauge goes into the night with a further decline. 264cm. Which means it has followed suit after Regensburg and has dropped into the statistical low water figures. notamermaid

I suppose this did not come unexpected now for you, but it is certainly not pleasant to have to pack again. A real pity then. Hopefully your new crew will be as great. Unfortunately, you have to cover a bit of stretch if it is Nuremberg to Passau. I guess the logistics are best for the company like that. Many go to Regensburg and then swap from there. You will be on the road close to three hours most likely if you go a direct route. That is allowing for the coach to be slower than a car. Of course, I do not know how the tour in Nuremberg will be organized. Hope all goes smoothly and you can enjoy the Bavarian landscape. notamermaid

Well, I was going to post about bridges... Now, yesterday, the news brought excitement for this Rhine river maiden in the shape of a report of the discovery, or rather confirmation, of a Roman bridge in the Eifel region. So I will widen this topic. Grin. Basically, this is about Cologne, modern bridges, Roman bridges, a Roman road and Trier. As you probably know, Cologne is a Roman city, it was the capital of Germania inferior, and called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, or abbreviated CCAA. Quite naturally, the Romans just did that as standard, there was a bridge crossing the Rhine to Divitia, which is now the modern suburb of Deutz. Constructed in 310 AD, it is not fully clear when that wooden bridge disappeared, but according to a city council article online it took over 900 years for there to be another permanent crossing over the river, so they say it happened around the year 960 and the next bridge was constructed in 1822 - a pontoon bridge. The modern bridge to Deutz stands where the Roman bridge was. Now Cologne has seven bridges (an eighth one is shared with the neighbouring district) and will get two more. Those two bridges are in the planning stages. This is the article from the city council, just have a look at the photo if you are interested. Plans will be ready in 2024: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/leben-in-koeln/verkehr/bruecken/zwei-neue-rheinbruecken-fuer-koeln There is another large settlement (among others) in what is now Germany that was of importance in Roman times, called Augusta Treverorum. This is now Trier on the Moselle. And at this point may I rave about the antiquities in Trier, better than in Cologne, do go to Trier, the bridge is partly still there and is much older than the Cologne bridge anyway and -snip!- where was I? Ah, yes. Roman roads. You could go along the Rhine and Moselle and the Romans certainly used the flat areas along the rivers to get to places. But from Cologne to Trier that is a bit tedious so why not cross the Eifel region, go over hills, past volcanic lakes and through swamps and build a road there? They seriously did that, through the middle of nowhere (which turns out to be not so nowhere, certainly not wilderness by any means) and that road from CCAA to Augusta Treverorum has in modern days been given the name Römerstraße Trier-Köln, and is part of the Via Agrippa network of Roman roads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_road_from_Trier_to_Cologne This is where yesterday's news come in. To be continued. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 274cm. Regensburg gauge has gone into the statistical low range of figures. Not enough water now coming from the Upper Danube. Not looking good. If the forecast is correct the level at Pfelling will be below 260cm by late tomorrow morning. How does that play out at Budapest now? Still better than in July, when the level was low but not so low that we had reports of impacted cruises here on CC. I think we can assume that the July situation will return, but could it get worse? notamermaid

My pleasure. Things going really fine along the Rhine, honestly better than I had feared for August. Looking over the Danube, things are not going so well. Which is of course not good for the Grand European journeys. Just a note, if anyone is asking themselves this question: "Is there any way to completely avoid a ship swap or cancellation on the major rivers in Germany on an itinerary due to drought?" Yes, "95 to 99 percent avoidance" is possible with an itinerary on the Main from Bamberg to Frankfurt, on the Saar and Moselle, or for a more standard Moselle/Rhine option that is Trier to Cologne or as far as Wesel (or Amsterdam, which is not on the Rhine of course). All those areas have locks and/or are dug out deep in the navigation channels. What about Basel to Frankfurt which avoids the Rhine Gorge? Basically the same as above, but the tricky bit is the Main river confluence which can get affected when the level gets quite low, so not as good as the other options. More importantly: Kaub gauge at 115cm, so basically on track with the forecast. notamermaid

Yes, I have now seen German articles online about the Ravel. I would tend to think the same. There are several German/European chains - mid-range to real luxury - that do not market or hardly market to the English-speaking world. Okay, in this day and age they may have now international websites. notamermaid

Another very warm day in the valley, but we have had hotter summers. As a consequence of a fair amount of rain in July and the temperatures not being on a constant summer high, there is enough water in the Rhine basin, at least in the sense that enough is still fed into the mighty river to give us satisfactory levels for river cruising. So, to follow up on my short post yesterday. Kaub gauge is at 119cm, forecast gives us 110cm on Thursday, i.e. the loss is not that great from day to day. Friday into Saturday should see the low, meaning the bottom in the chart is suggested for that time frame. Still mostly likely to be just above 100cm. It is suggested the month will end on more than 150cm. Which would give a good buffer for the first week in September. Note that this is computer modelling visualized in a probability chart. notamermaid

290cm was given by a spokesman for the authorities, in a newspaper article, for potential problems for river cruise ships. That appears to be a level we can work with for our purposes. Viking may swap at 292cm or at 288cm or 286cm or lower, an individual decision that will be up to the two captains involved. Viking does send e-mails informing of the possibility of ship swaps according to past cruisers. Do have a look in the roll calls where a few more people report directly their experiences. Areas between Bucharest and Budapest can be low and we have sporadic reports of this but I have no way of knowing details and cannot relate real-world data to any figures in the graphs. Forecast for Pfelling gives figures of 280cm and below for tomorrow. For now, the level is stable. 287cm. notamermaid

Here we go again... Low water, meaning a bit low for the river cruise ships with the deepest draft, Pfelling gauge at 286cm. Decision time for ship swaps? Or will all get through today? We could count the days soon when the Danube has fallen below the "comfort line" this year and do the same thing for the Rhine. If we made that comparison now the Rhine would come out better than the Danube. Much better... By the way, the heat has been stronger along the Main, in Bavaria and the Czech Republic in the last four days than along the Rhine. notamermaid

Road bridges cross over the Elbe, others carry trains. But this one carries ships. The aqueduct is officially called a "Kanalbrücke", meaning a navigable aqueduct. The Magdeburg Water Bridge is the longest of its kind in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_Water_Bridge If you would like to read a few more technical details (or look up other bridges): https://structurae.net/en/structures/magdeburg-canal-bridge I enjoyed this video, only short and I think you do not need to understand the German to appreciate the structure. A reporter of broadcaster NDR cycled along the Elbe and sailed on the Canal. He also crossed the Elbe on a ferry, a special, but old tried and tested, design that works without an engine, the German word for this one is a "Wagengierseilfähre": https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/nordmagazin/Wo-der-Mittellandkanal-die-Elbe-ueberquert,nordmagazin110162.html notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. On the Rhine we have mostly only the area from Worms to Koblenz to look at around this time for levels as that is where the low occurs - if it does. Nothing of note so far. Earlier this morning the forecast was not working, i.e. the website. Now here it is: Kaub at 136cm, levels till 1 September show that a high will follow a low. So to speak. All in all, probability for the level falling below 100cm is low. But it could happen. notamermaid