notamermaid

I had not noticed earlier: ural guy is also on the Alruna. notamermaid

The situation on the Elbe is still not good but the wave has gone through Dresden. This is Dresden: The upper reaches of the Vltava are still relatively high, I see level 2 (orange) at Cesky Krumlov. Flood warnings are also issued for the Havel and other rivers feeding the Elbe downstream from Dresden. notamermaid

Thank you for saying hello from your cruise. Good to read that all seems to be running smoothly now. At least up to Budapest. Amadeus, a bit of a more unusual company for North Americans. I reckon your New Year's Eve celebrations will happen in Vienna? Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Market Harborough, never been there. Been around it on the A1(M) and in Oakham and the M1. I see they have a town hall on stilts, I mean pillars, just like Faversham in Kent. I find them fascinating, there are not that many that I know, it seems to be more a British thing. I have never seen one personally in Germany. Perhaps few of them have survived the last two centuries here. notamermaid

Great! I did not know the bookings were open so far in advance. So you are going early in the Christmas market season: https://www.viva-*****/en/reise/adventsreise-nach-prag It is not fully clear to me but it looks from the daily arrival and departure times that the Swiss Ruby sails right into Prague. No coaches involved. Am I right? notamermaid

Here is a question for you past cruisers on the Rhine. I have read today - little more than the headline as the article is behind a we-want-your-data wall/pay wall - a newspaper article about river cruise ships now docking in Nierstein. This had made it into the news as it is a recent phenomenon, i.e. more ships are stopping there than used to. Townspeople think it may have something to do with the recent flooding that as we know disrupted normal itineraries. I wrote about Nierstein quite some time ago in the following link, I included the town in my list of the lesser known places: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2516698-rhine-beyond-the-standard-ports/page/2/ Has anyone docked in Nierstein recently and was it an itinerary change? notamermaid

Time to talk about the weather and the state of the roads to the experts in such conversations that are supposed to be the British. @Canal archive any snow where you are? notamermaid

Sad to read that. Good to hear you are safe. Floods in Northern Germany and along the Elbe still bad but in the last few hours reports have come through that the Elbe at Dresden is not as bad as had been predicted a couple of days ago. notamermaid

Something I forgot to mention. Not sure how many snow photos there are in river cruising brochures... It will likely look all great and romantic but more often than not you are going to encounter icy rain and plain rain rather than snow. Remember that the rivers suitable for river cruising in Europe are mostly below an altitude of 200m and it does not snow much. You could hit the right day and it will truly look magical. Last year in December we in my warm valley had two days of great snow that actually stayed with us for a bit, this year we have had about two hours that vanished within 12 hours. I mean in these last six weeks, so no snow for Christmas markets at all really. There is more snow in January and February. The two highest places in altitude as ports are Nuremberg (on the lower "slope" of the Main Danube Canal) and Regensburg on the Danube (unless you dock in Kelheim which is very unlikely). Regensburg town centre is at 337m above sea level. If you choose the Rhine you may for example dock and find the place rainy but take the excursion into the Black Forest and find yourself in a winter wonderland. notamermaid

Maxau gauge has finally fallen below official flooding status, that important threshold is marked by a blinking letter H on the Baden-Württemberg map and is now off. The only H left on that map is at Wertheim on the Main. We will see the level rise at Maxau again when more rain sets in but that is for next year and for river cruising already out of season (and interest). Emmerich at the border to the Netherlands will fall below flood mark I tomorrow and hopefully when the Lippe has discharged its high volume as well as minor other rivers in the larger tripoint region (Belgium/Netherlands/Germany), the Netherlands will see better conditions, especially along the Ijssel, again. I see that the gauge at Deventer there has already lost a few centimetres. Soon it will be time to look back at December and wrap up the year. As I have hinted at in my post about Worms it was an unusual Christmas market season. notamermaid

Continued good news from Bavaria. The rivers have discharged their high volumes of water to a great extent by now, the Danube is coping well and the levels continue to fall. Pfelling gauge is at 560cm and Passau gauge is at 622cm. Good news for the New Year's Eve festive cruises. I hope all can now sail and people have a great time. notamermaid

Authorities and newspapers have been saying that these levels have been unusual and they certainly have. I had a look at this for the Rhine and posted a graph for Worms. So I wondered how this year, meaning this late autumn and winter ranks on the Danube. I have had a look at annual graphs for Passau and yes this year has been exceptional. If you are disillusioned about Christmas market cruises going as planned do not be. Almost all years have been more favourable over a thirty year period. Sorry, this does of course not help you if you were hit by the weather this year. With a bit more time I will compile the graphs to prove my statement. notamermaid

The more difficult navigation in these high water levels contributed to an accident at Speyer. A river cruise ship tried to dock. The docking did not go well and the ship hit a so-called dolphin at a pier. There is considerable damage to the ship but no one was injured. The name of the ship has not been disclosed. https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/117719/5681361 notamermaid

I would shy away from the Paris to Prague one as to get to Trier you need a whole day's coach ride from Paris in which they include Reims according to the brochure - which is a great city - making it a long journey. At the end you have another, not quite so long, coach ride to Prague. Berlin to Prague is basically the same idea: international flight hub with overwhelmingly big city which you can only scratch the surface of and then have a river cruise in between. Mind you, Prague is fabulous. I just cannot rank these, partly because I do not like Viking and would never sail with them. For me as regards feel, towns and river landscape I would go for Budapest to Regensburg. But if I could book the river cruise without the coach extensions (which are part of the actual itinerary in this case) I would go for Paris (Trier port) to Prague (Regensburg? port). I agree. Look at the cities on the internet. Perhaps also think about the culture and language you want to experience. For me, little can top the "home of the Christmas tree" that is Alsace. @Pushka experienced the extremes of weather this year and the major disruptions coming with it. It is something you really need to be aware of when you decide on your cruise, Escaper. It is unlikely to happen to you but it can. notamermaid

Yes, the flooding is now in the Middle to Lower Danube. You can follow along for Hungary here: https://www.pannonris.hu/en/waterway/vizallas notamermaid

I think it has been briefly mentioned before, the Debussy is coming next year. Here are a few details: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/riverside-luxury-cruises-to-launch-third-ship-in-march notamermaid

If you are new to the topic of river levels on the Rhine you may wonder if this type of flooding is normal, especially at this time of year, I mean November and December. It is normal to more unusual, it was an occurrence of every two to five years to nearly every ten years, depending on gauge. What is certainly unusual is the time of year. We do get high volumes of water after downpours and flooding can happen even in summer to a small scale but mostly it is a late winter/early spring occurrence. Here is the graph for Worms that shows 2023 in context of a period of forty years (1981 to 2021): Blue is 2023, red is the maximums, green is the means, black is the lows. You can see the spike in November from which the river could not recover enough and the continued bad weather in December caused the graph to exceed on a couple of days what had been recorded in the forty year period. notamermaid

Passau is doing much better. Level now at 654cm. By tomorrow lunchtime sailing should be a lot easier. notamermaid

This is "mid-range" as regards water levels, but it was a cold day instead with the snow that had fallen a couple of days prior still on the ground. End of December 2014, a grey day and photo taken from the train: This year instead we got all the rain, virtually no snow in the valley (apart from a few minutes on one day (sort of)) and too warm temperatures that led to flooding. notamermaid

Netherlands rivers update: https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/28/concern-record-high-water-levels-netherlands notamermaid

A tanker got stuck on the weir at Mainz-Kostheim last night. That is the lock on the Main close to the confluence which has the ingenious design of a weir that allows ships to use it in flooding, i.e. when the river is high they can use it in addition to the lock. Do not ask me how that works... Something went wrong and the tanker got caught at a construction at the weir. River traffic was halted overnight: https://www.hessenschau.de/panorama/schiff-auf-main-verkeilt---schleuse-kostheim-bis-mittag-gesperrt--v1,schleuse-kostheim-gesperrt-100.html River traffic is now flowing again. Würzburg is still on level two flood warning, 421cm now, but going down well. It should get to level one during the evening. notamermaid

The Upper Rhine valley is staying okay. Maxau gauge is still expected to fall below official flooding status and remain there until the beginning of the year. The river remains fairly high though. With the next weather pattern that will bring much rain we can anticipate a rise but for now that does not look too significant (time frame 3-5 January). Emmerich gauge, the last one in Germany before the Netherlands, has peaked. So the German Rhine will soon be "out of the woods". The situation in other parts of Germany remains more critical. The Maas (Meuse) river by the way is also elevated but thankfully is not flooding as much as other rivers. It contributes to the flooding in the Netherlands. If the large Maas was carrying even more water the Netherlands would have an even bigger problem. notamermaid

To something completely different, to get away from river levels for a moment. Snow globes. Apart from the odd one appearing over centuries, the original modern snow globe with patented design comes from Vienna: https://www.dw.com/en/a-snow-flurry-on-demand-the-viennese-snow-globe/video-60589063 notamermaid

The Moselle rose again due to heavy rain but did not see the problems the other rivers did or are seeing now. The level at Trier is now already back down to 527cm. notamermaid

It has been a very wet Christmas in Germany and quite frankly for some people it has not been a festive time that they could enjoy to the full. There have even been evacuations on Christmas Day. Some info and footage. From Germany in general:https://www.dw.com/en/a-very-wet-holiday-season-in-germany/g-67823684 The dikes in parts of Germany and in the Netherlands need to be checked and secured: https://apnews.com/article/europe-rain-floods-germany-netherlands-80b755ee38cebd8ce472e3ededbc6205 Reservoirs are filled to the brim and need to carefully relieved of their water, but rivers are struggling to cope with that. Along the Rhine the situation is improving now as far down as Duisburg so helpers with heavy technical equipment have been sent to Lower Saxony from the Rhine. This was the Lahn river at Lahnstein (near Koblenz) with Lahneck Castle on Christmas Day. Spot the Amawaterways river cruise ship briefly caught on camera: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/hochwasser-lahn-lahnstein-rhein-100.html With the Danube and the Elbe also flooding I must admit that this Christmas market season cruises and the festive days sailings, which includes the short New Year's Eve cruises, have been much disrupted and we have seen better years as regards that. But I hear worse news from Australia. Stay safe there, folks. notamermaid