notamermaid

The water levels continue to be good. After dry and warm days the weather is now changing and the rain next week should bring the level at Kaub over 250cm again, staying any under levels that could indicate flooding in the near future. 208cm is the long-term mean so you can look forward to continued very pleasant sailing on "my" river. So let us have look at the islands in the river again this year. Tons of them about and one section of it has actually been dubbed the "Inselrhein", that is between Mainz and Bingen, as there are so many islands close together. Many are uninhabited (by humans), some are designated nature reserves or have another protected status, a few are peninsulas due to interference by humans, others are inhabited and one is a separate administrative entity, i.e. a proper village. One very interesting one historically is up there in Switzerland. No need for a moat or artificial way of creating a recluse - just use the mighty Rhine. Rheinau with its former monastery: https://www.myswitzerland.com/en/destinations/rheinau-abbey-island/ While this a distance from Basel and other places in Switzerland are more popular, with good reason, for extensions, I have long thought that it would be nice if a company could put a bigger focus on the upper reaches of the Rhine beyond Basel. The nearby Rhine Falls are not massive compared to others in the world but the scenery is nevertheless stunning. It is a different aspect of the Rhine that is worth seeing to "complete" the picture of this river in Europe I find. notamermaid

I just have to go to Ghent after seeing these photos! That castle is even better than I remember from other photos. Looks similar to the model one I used to play with (together with my male cousin). I very much enjoyed Bruges so it would be nice to compare the two. notamermaid

Forecast not looking too good, you are right. But as you say you have been to the area before. If you happen to check out the wine list, please post some info if the offers are regional, i.e. wine growing regions in Germany or France. Would love to know if they include the rarer Belgian wines. Have a great time. notamermaid

Yes, correct. 😊 Roß is the neutral older word, very much favoured in literature and a typical phrase is "Roß und Reiter". We enjoy alliterations as well. "Schimmel", yeah, weird one. The other meaning in German is mould. So "white horse" in the bathroom is most likely a mistranslation if you ever see it. 😉 The Haflinger are beautiful I find. notamermaid

More and more river cruise ships are sailing the Moselle. What has been a small hindrance so far has been the old infrastructure. The towns need more or stronger landing stages. Traben-Trarbach will have one updated so that then 135m ships can dock on both sides of the river. The mayor is happy, some townspeople are not. There is a Bürgerinitiative, a citizens' interest group, campaigning against it. They prefer it "quiet" as it is now. Townspeople in Bernkastel-Kues are also sceptical about the modernized landing stage area. But there the main reason for the investment is the connection to electricity supplied from on land. This will eliminate noise at night but some people seem to think it will attract more ships. Again, their mayor is fine with it. It is a constant debate how much money river cruise tourists spend in a place and whether it is worth putting up with more of them, not just on the Moselle. Here is the German article on the topic: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/trier/buergerinitiative-in-traben-trarbach-fuerchtet-massentourismus-wegen-mosel-fluss-kreuzfahrten-100.html notamermaid

It does look good from the air, doesn't it? Apparently the bastion bits are recreated according to the original and the architect was not Vauban, but it is still impressive. As the Meuse was a frontier there exist several fortified places in the area. Much further upstream and almost a century later a water-related place came into existence. Quite a different use of it in these gardens: http://www.annevoie.be/en/ I see one online German website calling the palace between Namur and Dinant the Belgian Versailles. May be a bit of a tall order... Not sure that the place needs to be compared to anything else it just looks good to me. As I have noted in a past year, you could sail to Dinant on a small ship but it is of course not far from Namur so easy to do as an excursion. notamermaid

Thank you for the link. Had not heard of this tradition there. By the way, for the language nerd. We call the heavy horses pulling the beer wagons also Brauereigäule. Word to be used in limited circumstances! "Gaul" is mostly a not so nice word for a horse, but basically okay with the Brauerei in front. @Canal archive I love the shire horses, your equivalent to those breeds here. Give me a shire horse to look at over any posh Viennese Hofreitschule one any day. Once took a ride in a carriage through York with a half breed I think it is called. Anyway, one of those strong ones but not heavily built for breweries. It was a lovely experience. We do not see many carriages or heavy horses where I live. notamermaid

From Namur ,Huy and Liége river cruise ships have those two main options of diverting into the Albert Canal or staying on the Meuse and sailing into the Netherlands. Sailing via Maastricht and Venlo you can head to Nijmegen via the Maas-Waal Canal (see post above) or - again - stay on the Meuse. That is what Uniworld appear to do. The company offers this intriguing, somewhat unusual itinerary: https://www.uniworld.com/uk/river-cruise/central-europe/rhine/holland-and-belgium-at-tulip-time/2024-brussels-to-amsterdam Brussels to Amsterdam would be a normal route but this one after a more standard sail through the Albert Canal arrives in Maastricht and the following day stops in Cuijk! This is the port from which you can take a tour to Nuenen where the painter Vincent van Gogh lived. Here is some info:https://www.vangoghbrabant.com/en/home/nuenen/exhibitions/vincents-life-in-nuenen The afternoon takes the ship to Heusden a place I only know in connection with a shipyard. What a fascinating small town, I mean, look at this: https://www.visitbrabant.com/en/locations/248755060/the-fortified-town-of-heusden The next stop is the more conventional Kinderdijk excursion. Nice of Uniworld to combine something new with the familiar stops. notamermaid

It's as flat as a pancake down there at Kinderdijk. An odd kind of place, so different from my river up here. I spotted the grey and blue earthenware pots in one photo. They could be Dutch but they look more like the Kannenbäckerland pottery from the Westerwald near Koblenz in Germany. Interesting. notamermaid

Hmmm, I cannot really think of anything. The busy weekend of Rhine in Flames is at Oberwesel on 14 September and the big one at Koblenz is earlier than your time frame. Public holidays I am not aware of - those may impact on shopping and other activities. But do check dates yourself: https://www.feiertagskalender.ch/index.php?geo=0&jahr=2024&hl=en You may bump into a wine festival which generally is a plus but could alter a schedule in a port. River levels tend to be okay, but no way of planning that. Crowds are there and rafting of river cruise ships will happen. But that is not confined to August. Has anyone any thoughts? notamermaid

Sorry to read about the fall. Hope you recover quickly. notamermaid

Good question. I have no direct answer but the Tagus is apparently not an easy river to make navigable. At least not in Spain. Geography. Historically and logistically speaking, river cruising follows commercial shipping, i.e. only a river that has been used and made relatively safe and efficiently to use by transport is then used for transport of humans and then used for transport of humans for leisure. If the Spanish did not consider it commercially viable or necessary for transport they just did not do it. In Portugal it is a little different and there appear to be short leisure boat trips in the Lisbon area. Again, leisure follows commercial transport. I am not convinced that in Portugal it would make sense to introduce river cruising now but perhaps a company is still looking into it. Unless the authorities categorically prohibit large ships anyway. On the Danube beyond Kelheim for example you can use motorboats, the river is navigable for some length and suitable for that, but the authorities do not allow it. In Portugal by the way the river only has a length of 145km. CroisiEurope for example introduced river cruising to the Loire, a notoriously shallow river not suitable for large transport that had never seen a river cruise ship ever before the Loire Princess was put on the water in 2015. Some rivers just do not work and that particular river cruise ship was specifically built for that river, it looks different from any other ship. Canal archive mentions dams, so those, if not built with a lock, block a river for traffic of course. I suspect there may be something with the authorities as the river is not registered officially as a waterway. Here is a page where you can download maps. You can see that the Tagus is not marked: https://unece.org/where-navigate-network-inland-waterways-europe-and-its-parameters notamermaid

A look at marinetraffic.com reveals river cruise ships sailing the Meuse. At midnight local time 11 April these are the Avalon Tranquility II coming back from Namur, the Viking Kvasir sailing towards Maastricht and the SE Manon on the return leg to Düsseldorf. This Dutch flag ship sails for SE Tours, a German company. And there is the Switzerland docked in Mook. The German "Reise Riese Prestige" is currently in the Maas-Waal Canal headed for Maastricht. So there is more than the occasional bit of river cruise traffic on the Meuse. Very few ships go as far upstream as Namur though. Itineraries often also do not stay on the Meuse for long if the next port is Antwerp. Then river cruise ships go through the Albert Canal from Liége. Another ship will also be on the Meuse in summer. Saga returns to the river to see the highly popular concerts of André Rieu in Maastricht. The ship leased by the company from Lüftner Cruises, the Amadeus Elegant, will take passengers along the Meuse to and from the concerts on three dates. This is the long Dutch and Belgian waterways itinerary: https://travel.saga.co.uk/cruises/river/where-we-go/dutch-and-belgian-river-cruises/the-andre-rieu-hometown-experience.aspx?availability=2&boardbasis=AI notamermaid

Forecast for river levels still looks good for at least a week so let us have a look at a ship. We talked about the ship more than a year ago when the proud company announced it and now it is ready to sail. The big difference with the MS Gentleman is that she has not been built by the Vahali shipyards and she does not belong to a "normal" river cruise company or fit into an existing fleet of an owner or lease company like Scylla in Switzerland. The company is actually an operator of commercial transport ships. This is their first venture into river cruising (setting up a separate company for that). In spring and summer the MS Gentleman will sail for 1A Vista Reisen. It appears from the website of that river cruise operator that she will sail after the christening which will be in May. It is not clear when exactly and where it will take place. Heusden on the Meuse is the home of Teamco shipyards that last year built a river cruise ship for Amadeus Flusskreuzfahrten, the Riva. The company delivers about one river cruise ship per year, but appears to have been busier with river cruise ships in the past. Another charter this summer is done by Thurgau Travel in Switzerland. That river cruise operator offers the "Southern runs", i.e. starting and/or ending in Basel. I am looking forward to seeing this ship on "my" river. I kind of think it does look a bit "male" in the interior design. Will be doing even more ship spotting to try and see this brain child of Arjan Van Loon and his children in May/June. notamermaid

Yup, I have no clue why they did this. Which reminds me, fun fact for those travelling on the long journey on the Danube, Canal, Main and Rhine. The Danube is now 134km shorter than in the 19th century (man-made alterations) and the Rhine has a miscalculated short kilometre: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Kurzer_Kilometer.jpg The plus sign before the number 530 denotes the 500m mark. notamermaid

The past week was the high time for the pink cherry blossoms in Bonn (and elsewhere). Saturday was a beautiful day and apparently Bonn Altstadt was packed. There was a flea market and everyone wanted to see the blossoms. You can see the flowers in other parks and streets along the Rhine of course as well, just a few more days. The proper white cherry blossoms of the fruit trees also look pretty. Now it is the apple orchards that follow with their bloom. Koblenz will have a spring market weekend from 12 to 14 April. There are many other small festivals in the Rhine towns and villages. Perhaps you will stumble upon one when on your river cruise. Filsen in the Rhine Gorge is known for its cherry orchards and has a cherry tree trail but the village is not a stop for river cruise ships. It can be reached from Boppard by ferry. notamermaid

You spotted my mistake. Oops. Of course, my sentence should read: ...marked from the mouth upstream... Sorry. notamermaid

The Danube length is calculated and marked from the source upstream, so Kelheim in Germany is at kilometre 2414. That is the point where the river becomes navigable for large ships. In Kelheim ships turn into the Main Danube Canal. Upstream from the town only a few excursion boats are permitted to sail and not for many kilometres. The Danube has already flowed through Germany for almost 500 kilometres before it reaches Kelheim. Naturally, several historic towns line the river that river cruisers will never see - unless they opt for a land trip before embarking. But that is a topic for another post. I mention this because one such place bears in its name the old German word for river island "Werth" or "Werd". That is Donauwörth. Yes I know, it is spelled differently, which is typical for the South of Germany and Austria. Peculiar about Donauwörth is the fact that the Free Imperial City was called Schwäbischwerth in the Middle Ages. The Danube has many islands as you may expect but in Germany they are not as plentiful as on the Rhine in comparison. But Regensburg administrative district can claim four islands to be in its territory. They are Mariaorter Wörhd, Oberer Wöhrd and Unterer Wöhrd. While the first one is uninhabited, the two latter ones are home to quite a few people. And there is the fourth one, Stadtamhof, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. I must say the park on Oberer Wöhrd looks really attractive on photos. notamermaid

Same time posting. 😊 You are right of course. A higher level of crowded along the Rhine I would say, definitely in Rüdesheim. Enjoy Luxembourg, I like the relatively quiet river there and the city (the capital) itself is in a dramatic landscape setting at the Pétrusse and Alzette rivers. I guess you will dock in Remich or Grevenmacher, or is Luxembourg an excursion from Trier? notamermaid

Had not thought to post this before, perhaps this is a helpful for those bicycle excursions. There is a signed cycle route along the Moselle: https://en.visitmosel.de/cycling/mosel-cycle-path notamermaid

The sun is shining brightly on the river cruise ships today, a slightly cloudy, lovely day for sailing and a bit better weather for the passengers of the MS Amina on her first proper river cruise itinerary. The inaugural cruise with her christening was only three days and partly a rainy experience. Still, a fun time was surely had by the dignitaries and industry guests (and some folk the likes of you and me). Matthias Morr, a youtube travel blogger, covered the christening in a live stream and also took his followers along on a walk through Koblenz. Kind of weird to see my "shopping turf" from that perspective. Another river cruise ship is ready to be photographed in spring sunlight, the MS Gentleman. She is now signalling in Heusden in the Netherlands. She is a Dutch ship. More on that in another post. notamermaid PS: River water levels all good.

To the present day. We have mentioned lock maintenance on the Danube but at the same time the Main river locks are being seen to as well. Work starts on 10 April. notamermaid

Indeed. As we have noted earlier in the year, this includes some Danube locks in Germany as well. Maintenance there starts on 10 April. Some of the locks in Austria are being maintained this winter and spring but at all locks one chamber is always open. notamermaid

A good question. It would be interesting to hear about this from someone who has been on the Rhine and Moselle on the same cruise. I do not go to the Moselle that often but must say that I did find Bernkastel-Kues busy in August. Cochem I know will get busy in the summer, it is loved by the Dutch. What I can say is that the Moselle river is not as busy as the Rhine river. There are fewer river cruise ships as well. Expect crowds in Trier all the time but I would says it is not Cologne or Strasbourg... notamermaid

I used to buy and drink lower alcohol wines. In the last ten years I have seen more and more of the 14% reds around here. Why do they make them that strong? Yorkshire puddings, yes, work well. I know it should be beef but I really like them with lamb. No mint sauce for me, I pour the gravy over the puds. notamermaid