notamermaid

Weird stuff indeed. It was weirder in the past of course. Anyone remember (from stories or having done that trip) the underground stations that were never stopped at because they ran through East Berlin? Wikipedia has an interesting page on this type of station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_station Cannot find the info on Amsterdam on the Eurostar website. This is how a railway journal reports it: https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/amsterdam-london-eurostar-service-to-be-suspended-for-five-months/ It appears that international news is far more eager to pick up the story than the Netherlands themselves... notamermaid

I read the article as well and found it confusing. Quite frankly, I had assumed that Riviera Travel would kind of automatically serve the Irish market. But there must have been something in the past, then a change, now the return. A bit odd. notamermaid

If it is just the passport control then that should work. The Channel Tunnel is like this: Border people in Calais are from both France and England, in Folkestone they are also from both England and France. You are cleared to enter the country rather than leave the country. Leaving Amsterdam would mean taking the Eurostar to enter the UK and you need border control I assume. However, this would not be needed when taking the train to Paris as it is within the Schengen zone. They could run those. notamermaid

Some new info on CroisiEurope, how business has been lately and what the company does to reduce the impact on the environment: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ports-destinations/croisieurope-sees-increase-turnover-notes-impact-ukraine-war notamermaid

Sorry to read that. I hope all goes well and your trip can continue on the ship. River levels will be rising again as there has been substantial rain today. A lot came down as snow though. Right now it does not look as if there will be flooding or a strong rise at Passau, just generally high levels. notamermaid

The stories I have heard about Paris transport would make even me consider flying... Dragged my suitcases from Heathrow to London proper on the Underground before that shiny Heathrow Express came into existence. Wasn't fun. I gather it is better now. I recommend trains but must admit that one of my worst First World train journeys was back from my river cruise, a fast train around Frankfurt airport that apart from it not being overly hot cannot have been much worse than a train in a developing country. Have yet to go on a TGV. They say taking a train "over" the Alps is spectacular so this sounds great. notamermaid

A slight change to the forecast. The first significant rise at Maxau is forecast for Tuesday to Wednesday, with a drop and then another rise of signifance taking us into the weekend. Both times the peak will most likely be below 750cm, so no ban, but flood mark I will definitely be reached. Just to add an interesting fact for further downstream. Emmerich on the lower Rhine is the last gauge in Germany. It has followed suit of course, meaning dropping similarly to the other gauges before it, but is still high - 535cm. The lowest ever recorded level occurred in 2022: literally -1. It is a cold, unpleasant day today. Icy rain in the valley necessitates driving extra carefully. Snow is getting ever closer to the warm areas of the valleys. It is snowing in Frankfurt but raining in Cologne. Above 300m rain is most likely falling as snow. notamermaid

Had never thought to mention this but Riviera Travel UK offers train travel sometimes as a standard alternative to flying. I regularly see it mentioned as (close to original wording) "take the coach to Brussels for the Eurostar or board your coach for the transfer to the airport" when the cruise ends in Cologne. Admittedly, Cologne is the best port for that apart from Amsterdam in my opinion. notamermaid

Happen to be visiting Frankfurt on a river cruise this winter? The botanical gardens have a special illuminations event: https://www.palmengarten.de/en/occasion.html?tx_calendarize_calendar[index]=41421&cHash=90acefadb784bf332071307abc890942 notamermaid

As no one answered you yet, I had a look to see if Viking has posted that recipe online. Vanilla crescent cookies would normally be Vanillekipferl but I could not find that name. This is a crescent shaped cookie recipe which looks similar to what I know as the Vanillekipferl. Was it that one? https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/why-viking/community/viking-recipes/desserts/viennese-crescent-cookies.html notamermaid

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but here goes. Combine flight and train in Germany: https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-News/United-enables-customers-book-Deutsche-Bahn In Europe the choices for train connections are almost endless. If you cannot get a direct flight to your destination and you are happy to navigate airports and train stations on your own you can do a lot of combining and may even save money in the process. Just a couple of ideas. Fly into London and take the train to Brussels or Amsterdam for your cruise. Or fly into Frankfurt and go to your cruise in Nuremberg. Unless you have booked a pre-cruise trip to Prague which I think is far better as regards sightseeing. notamermaid

If done the British polite way, it could take a week. 😁 That would be quite the video seeing all these leave in a concerted way one after the other. Levels on the Danube continue to be good. Passau gauge at 561cm. Plenty of room under the bridge. Snow in Passau: https://www.feratel.com/webcams/deutschland/passau.html notamermaid

Ah yes. Forgot to mention that: in the other thread steamboats reported that Munich airport market opens early and a few markets in Munich proper open before Sunday of the Dead. The other countries are not bound by that rule for the Sunday as much. Salzburg would need checking. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2968897-christmas-markets-river-cruises-2023-infos-and-tips/page/2/ notamermaid

The levels of the Rhine continue to be good, but high. Maxau gauge will go further down but stay above the mean, so the next rise after all this rain is anticipated for next weekend. Most likely this will be on flood mark I and could reach official flooding status again. Another river traffic ban is not indicated. The bridge at Cologne Niehl harbour is in the news again. It had been severely damaged by a barge with a crane construction. Newspapers report that it may need to be demolished. A quiet day by law, not much is happening and the weather is not really inviting you to venture out far. We have snow in the high hills but cold, wetting rain in the valley. notamermaid

Welcome to the wonderful world of river cruising. The day to focus on for Germany is Totensonntag, Sunday of the Dead, which is observed as a quiet day and the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. Christmas markets are usually closed. In 2024 it is the 24th of November. Many markets outside of Germany open earlier, as well as some in Germany. So 26th November sounds like a good day to start a river cruise, most likely you will see all the markets open (no guarantee). notamermaid

Lovely. Thanks for saying hello from Austria. Enjoy the city and the snow. Vienna is at a height between 151m and 544m above sea level. High enough for rain to turn into snow, weather report says it is one degree Celsius right now. And the first snow has certainly made the Austrian news this evening, I see online. notamermaid

Hmm, I think we can say that there is definitely something wrong with the itinerary of the Amaserena and I will repeat my assumption that the ship had the unfortunate incident at Trechtingshausen. From Rüdesheim she left during the night and returned downstream. Never seen a ship do that before. She went through the Rhine Gorge and straight to Cologne where she arrived early this morning. There she is docked not at the "right" side of Cologne but has joined German ships on the Deutz side, in the harbour together with the "wasps". Those are the "Wespe(s)", the WSP boats of the Wasserschutzpolizei, the police launches: notamermaid

That is the one I would like to see. One day I will make it to Bavaria in winter... I have been to the Bavarian Forest in late winter, when the lower hills had had the snow thawed but we went up roads and could still walk in a winter forest. Really nice. Deutsche Bahn is a problem... Traben-Trarbach on the Moselle is a bit worried about potential problems for their market as parking is very limited and there will we train cancellations so visitors will need to take buses to get there. Last year we had an early spell of real snow at the beginning of December along the Rhine. Our Januaries are normally colder than our Decembers. Looks like Munich will get a bit of snow over the weekend. I think I will be below the "Schneefallgrenze" over the weekend. A grey, cold day here. We have 2 to 6 degrees. Have been to the first charity Advent do, a typical Adventsbasar in a Christian community centre, with hand-knitted socks, second-hand goods and biscuits and waffles. Good fun. May get the chance to go to a small privately organised festivity tomorrow, you know, one that is allowed - exemption from Totensonntag closure. I refuse to go to proper Christmas markets before Sunday of the Dead. I am a traditionalist. 🙂 notamermaid

The Arosa Donna has had an accident. The company issued a statement saying that due to sudden strong currents the ship hit ground during a night sailing early on Wednesday. The damage was bad enough to cause the itinerary to end. The passengers were taken to Passau to make their journeys home and offered to repeat the cruise when the Arosa Donna returns to service after repairs. Next available itinerary is 11 December. These are all short Advent cruises typical for German companies to offer. They are three or four nights when Christmas markets are on. Water levels continue to be good. Some rain over parts of the Danube. Bavaria, here I mean even towns along the Danube, will see a bit of snow during the evening and night. notamermaid

Not sure which one you saw, but the one of Cologne Niehl drone image is striking. Tops the Vienna one for sure. notamermaid

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2910185-danube-water-levels-2023-and-similar-topics-plus-tips-and-info/page/45/#comments notamermaid

Where do ships go in winter? To a harbour naturally, but it needs to safe. There are industrial harbours and special winter harbours. On the Danube many river cruise ships dock in Linz: Vienna has a winter harbour as well of course: Look which is there - the old Viking Prestige! She is not that old actually but was replaced by the longships. Does the Prestige actually still sail? Not much happening there yet, but see what the google image used reveals when we zoom in: That is how many ships moored when the satellite image was taken. There are other harbours. If you are completely bored some time in winter you can do some ship spotting of which ship docks where. notamermaid

Did a bit of webcam spotting and searching. I think it is the Amaserena that is having problems. I say is as she is still in the Rüdesheim area. She arrived from direction Trechtingshausen about 85 min after the incident and docked at Rüdesheim for almost 24 hours. Around lunchtime today there was a second Amawaterways ship docked alongside. That one left shortly after, then a pilot boat arrived. That escorted the Amaserena upstream in the side channel. It left shortly after the Amaserena docked at a building supplies company at Geisenheim, at a small industrial harbour area. She is still there now: notamermaid

Now for something a little bit different. When sailing from Regensburg to Passau or vice versa you pass a ship that is seemingly docked in a remote place away from towns at a beautiful spot near a castle and hill with monument. It is at Donaustauf and the ship is the MS Rossini. She is a former splendid classic river cruise ship but is now used to house refugees. The ship had been docked a bit further downstream at Bach but the local authorities have a coordinated plan for this and moved the ship in August. So you may have seen this on your past cruise at a different spot. It is still a "normal" ship technically and signals. Here: It is somewhat sad to see the ship go down that way as it can easily be the end of the road before, you now, conversion to private or worse. But to the small town of Donaustauf. Marked on marinetraffic is the Burgberg. Yes, a castle on a hill. Not bad, but what is a real draw there is the other landmark, Walhalla. Kind of weird, refugees on a ship underneath the hall of fame of Germans. https://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/objects/walhalla.htm From Regensburg the Walhalla is a pleasant coach ride. It should be offered on excursions but Regensburg itself is certainly the grander experience so I would understand it if no company ever offers it. You can go by boat from Regensburg: https://tourismus.regensburg.de/en/experience-discover/guided-tours-walks-and-round-trips/boat-trips notamermaid

Yes, you would need a huge "car park" for all those ships together now, 100plus vessels. Will put a short post in the Danube thread. notamermaid