notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 296cm. I keep thinking that there is a giant snake in the river that gobbles up the water (blame it on me growing up with Rhine legends) but I gather it really has more to do with what the authorities do at the locks. Anyway, that is getting a bit low. Will it fluctuate upwards or will the downhill slope of the graph continue? Hmmm... notamermaid

Yes, the Moselle. On that idea: You stopped in Nuremberg. You could kind of continue on that route on an itinerary that takes you to Trier/Remich. Not sure what it is called anymore, but a couple of companies do this. Germany, in essence, but great scenery (okay, not necessarily the Canal but tons of locks). Main Danube Canal, Main, Rhine (Gorge), Moselle. Trier is fabulous for history. Remich is the standard port in Luxembourg country. But if you want to skip to a different country and feel - the Rhone for taking you towards the Mediterranean or the Seine for taking you to the Atlantic. Two different oceans, two different atmospheres. notamermaid

All together now: "Es muß Nacht sein, es muß Nacht sein..." You have managed to put that into my ear in five seconds... Cindy & Bert, great duo. I remember one beer advert from television some time in the 80's that has stuck with me, Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu. A child is asked to buy some for the grandfather I think. Walks along the path, repeating the name, gets to the shop and gets the name wrong and says Klostrerbacher Alpirsbräu". Benevolent smile and correction by the shop owner follows. Alpirsbach is in the Black Forest. notamermaid

Ah, that one. On the website of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress it is called "Die Akte Humfrey": https://tor-zum-welterbe.de/de/kulturzentrum-festung-ehrenbreitstein/fuehrungen-und-living-history/ notamermaid

In other news along the Rhine: six new docking areas for river cruise ships are planned in Southern Alsace. Two of those places will be at Huningue outside of Basel. Basel is struggling to accommodate all river cruise ships, according to a Basel newspaper (paywall, I can read a couple of sentences). In Koblenz, preparations are underway for the construction of the new Pfaffendorf Bridge. As a result, the navigation channel is narrower than usual at that spot. Which brings me back to bridges... notamermaid

Plateau was reached shortly after I posted yesterday. Pfelling going down fast, I reckon more water is retained by the locks. I have mentioned before that from the Main Danube Canal water is diverted from the Danube basin to the Main basin. I do not know if one can quantify the effect. All in all with a drop of 30cm possible in 18 hours, Pfelling certainly proves to be annoyingly unpredictable/fluctuating strongly. Now at 319cm. All good still. notamermaid

Commiserations to the Lionesses. Have just read the result. I am sure they sweated more than me but it is hot here, between 28 and 30 Celsius. Still, could be worse. Miss the air-conditioning I have at work, though. I was going to bake a lemon drizzle cake (English recipe) but I will leave the oven off. notamermaid

Tons of beer around along the Main, of course. Last year I went to the beer garden of the Würzburger Hofbräu. Busy but enjoyable. Food was nice, not brilliant, and I got a (simple with logo) beer stein as souvenir. It is here: notamermaid

Interesting. Not the version I know. I have heard of the actor guide tours on the Fortress. Sound really good. I have been thinking of joining a tour (they are available for spontaneous bookings) for a few years. There is one with a soldier and one with an engineer. notamermaid

I think this may have been the beer of this company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schlitz_Brewing_Company Apparently, Joseph Schlitz cam from Mainz. It is plausible that one of his ancestors came from Schlitz, i.e. as used to happen people were known as soandso from Schlitz and that then turned into a family name. There was a brewery in Schlitz, their beer is now being brewed in a neighbouring village. Rheingold - good name for a beer I would say. notamermaid

The Main river - if you are new to the area you may be wondering why this thread does not come up regularly for water levels. We are in summer and the river is so deep and controlled by locks that low water is almost never an issue. Flooding affects the river as much as others. A particular aspect that is negative about sailing on the Main is the low bridges and the sun deck. But that is on page one and you can read it there. Along the river we get standard ports with little variation in itineraries but in recent years there has been a bit more choice. All the standard ports are interesting of course. Last year I went to Wertheim for the first time and really enjoyed it. I know a little of the area but would really like to see more. A small town that has been recommend to me by a very dear person is Schlitz. "Great!", I thought, but it is actually a bit far out from Frankfurt. Oh well, there are plenty of other places, mind you a town with four (!) castles really needs exploring. I will try and fit in Schlitz some time this year. The town is on one of the routes of the "Half-timbered Houses Road": https://www.deutsche-fachwerkstrasse.de/en/Homepage.html See Weserbergland-Spessart. One of the other places along that road that we have not talked about yet is Steinheim, which is a district of Hanau. It is well known for its architecture. So I checked a video since I have not been there yet. Not bad, not bad at all. I love the tower: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Steinheim#/media/Datei:Schloss_Steinheim_Ansicht03.jpg which you can apparently see from the river as well. And as always, if you feel like sharing your photos of anywhere on the Main, please do. notamermaid

Okay, got that wrong. I did not think of this one as being one of the few itineraries that do not include Koblenz. The Inspire is now sailing in the Lower Middle Rhine valley and the guests can enjoy the mountains including the famous Drachenfels. Not sure, but I think it is this itinerary: https://www.tauck.co.uk/tours/rhine-swiss-alps-amsterdam-river-cruise?tcd=rgx2023 Excluding Koblenz turns this into almost a full day (morning till early evening) of cruising. Really unusual but a nice alternative to standard itineraries. And the special excursions are highly interesting to read about. The passengers will see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siebengebirge and of course the towers of Remagen bridge. Oh, and that area also has no bridges, the distance without one is shorter though, having passed under Raiffeisenbrücke Neuwied at km 607, the next bridge the ship will sail under is the first one at Bonn at km 651. notamermaid

Interesting words. We sometimes use Bitumen as the word for tar, i.e. on a road or on a roof. The middle of nowhere is "in der Pampa", a place that is somewhere either barren or far off or boring or deserted, often a mix of all those choices. A standard German word would be Einöde for a really deserted place notamermaid

Pfelling gauge doing really well: 349cm, still on the way up. Let us have an "interim middle of the month" screen shot to see the difference to July: You do not want to see the graph at MNW, RNW is tricky, MW is very good. notamermaid

My pleasure. Thank you for following along. October - that should mean lovely sunsets and some autumn colours. That month can still bring some really pleasant temperatures for touring and enjoying the sundeck. I hope the weather will be great for you and you get some great views of - well - everything really. notamermaid

For those interested, you can download the docking plan for the Moselle harbour area here: https://www.koblenz-touristik.de/de/geschaeftsfelder/hafen I do not know of a publicly available docking plan for the Rhine. Viking uses their own private landing stage and I have never seen such info published by them. For Rüdesheim, the area of where the ships dock is mapped out here, click on "Hier" in the text: https://www.fremdenverkehrsgesellschaft.de/schiffslandebrücken And this is the timetable: https://www.landebruecken.de/timetable notamermaid

Welcome to CruiseCritic. Thank you for saying hello from your cruise. I always enjoy spotting the Inspire on the river. I like her design very much. marinetraffic.com tells me that you are sailing downstream, so you will be in Koblenz in a few hours time (unless you have a stop along the way). The Inspire is not listed in the harbour plan for the Moselle, so I reckon you will dock on the Rhine. A favourite spot of mine, the Rhine Gorge "ending in style", is the gateway of the hills, on the left bank is Schloss Stolzenfels and on the right bank is Burg Lahneck. From on land, on a specific road, you can get them both together in a photo, not sure if it works from the river. Koblenz is not in the Rhine Gorge anymore topographically but is part of the UNESCO World heritage site. Have a great time on "my" river. notamermaid

Braubach would be a bit far for a Koblenz port stop, that village is really only for the Marksburg excursion unless you skip Koblenz in your itinerary. But Viking has its particular way of handling this, i.e. drop people off at Braubach, pick them up at Koblenz or variations of that. The "double parking" at Koblenz Deutsches Eck is standard for Viking. As far as I know they hardly ever dock on the Moselle. The webcam at Koblenz: https://www.feratel.com/en/webcams/germany/koblenz.html with a snap shot if that is what it is called of a few minutes ago: While writing this post, the Compass Opera has just left Koblenz and is sailing downstream through the Neuwied Basin and then into the mountain region of the Lower Middle Rhine valley. Feratel has some of the best webcams for spotting river cruise ships in Germany. The cables of the Seilbahn will be too thin to show up on the map I posted and the cars of it are probably too small as well, one may see them perhaps when zooming further in on marinetraffic.com. A note on Koblenz: while the city is over 2000 years old, little remains of the oldest structures, but some towers and a few wall segments of the Roman town and early Medieval city remain that I am sure your tour guide will point out to you. "Deutscher Kaiser" is one of the oldest buildings remaining and not far from there is the "Alte Burg". This is how William Turner put Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein on canvas, from Moselle with the Balduin Bridge: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/19235/ehrenbreitstein-mosel notamermaid

So I have missed the transfer to the Rhone. Here is a the article on the Riverside Ravel from travelweekly: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tourism/second-riverside-luxury-cruises-ship-christened notamermaid

Good to read that everything went smoothly. Have a good night and a good day tomorrow. If you are going to Regensburg be prepared for a hot day. notamermaid

Just for a bit of fun, here is a screenshot of marinetraffic.com how it shows Koblenz tonight - to which I will add a few comments: Koblenz is a city on two rivers, the Rhine and Moselle. The name comes from Latin and in the translation (the old word) means "where the rivers flow together". The Roman settlement is in the Medieval town walls which show on the map as a ring touching the Moselle embankment about where the blue dot for the Monet is. You can see this marked on a photo here: https://www.kuladig.de/Objektansicht/O-100372-20140819-8 Three bridges cross the Moselle but there is also a tiny ferry, the Liesel, which you can see docked in the small harbour. In Koblenz river cruise ships both dock on the Moselle and the Rhine regularly, I have already mentioned the Monet, see if you can spot other names. I know, sorry, it is a small scale. To the left of the large bridge is the last lock on the Moselle, in the screen shot a ship called Eltz is in there. The tip at the confluence shining in light grey is of course Deutsches Eck. The shape was given in the 19th century. On the right river bank is Ehrenbreitstein with the fortress on the hill. In the photo just below there is the blue dot of the "Schaengel", that is another ferry. I mentioned the small harbour the other day, when the regional television had the Viking Orvar in a shot, showing her leaving to sail downstream. At the bottom right of the screen shot is Pfaffendorf Bridge and jut out of view is the peninsula Oberwerth which was an island originally. Just a bit further upstream are the last two bridges (km 588) before, if you travel upstream, you enter the Rhine Gorge and have to rely on crossing on a ferry as the next bridge is beyond the end of the Rhine Gorge at Mainz (km 504). More on bridges to come. notamermaid

Thank you. That makes more sense. I was wondering how you play tennis on a small court as the tennis ball is a bit fast. I vaguely remember reading about this. I think I would prefer a skittles alley. Or a darts board. Although that may be bit more difficult as you need a collapsible wall mount. Beer and darts - hmm, another idea for a "more male" river cruise. notamermaid

The folk on Binnenschifferforum have of course also taken photos of the AmaMagna and one man has recently spotted something new on the ship. A tennis court! Not sure how long it has been there, but it sounds as if it is a recent addition: https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?83701-Amamagna-KFGS-02329183&p=461555#post461555 With her extra width she is a good ship for this. Height restrictions (bridges) make it difficult to add amenities to the top deck of course. A tennis court is easily disassembled. notamermaid

Thanks for the info. Okaayyy, I am a bit surprised as Pfelling gauge stands at 322cm. But your tour operator may well think ahead and not risk anything or the ship is running late. Anyway, an individual decision that does not mean other companies do the same. I hope an excursion to Regensburg is possible for you. Transfer to Vilshofen instead of Regensburg should not be a big deal. A hot day in Germany, a few clouds with thunderstorms and rain are still sweeping over the Bavarian Forest and parts of the Czech Republic. Forecast for tomorrow shows 35 Celsius for around Regensburg and Nuremberg. notamermaid

Yes, that is what I meant. Dahoam is dahoam is the sort of expression, when you hear it spoken in a room in Bavaria by a man beyond age 60, the walls clad with wood and winter outside the door, you feel what the word Heimat contains. Food for the soul. A hot day in the Rhine valley. Kaub at 167cm. All looking good. notamermaid