notamermaid

With the Danube and the Rhine experiencing some flooding we should have a look at the Elbe. Dresden is at 163cm. All fine around the long-term mean. But there is some volume of water coming so a slight rise we can assume will happen soon at Dresden. notamermaid

Basel level peaked at 872cm and is now down to 846cm. There is a river traffic ban up to Kembs. Maxau is at 726cm, still below the crucial figure of 750cm. With the lock at Iffezheim doing the locking process more slowly I anticipate a backlog when shipping fully resumes. notamermaid

Passau gauge has reached 623cm and is rising more slowly now. Can it stay below 630cm? notamermaid

News from Basel is that the river upstream is closed to traffic which I assume means that excursion boats cannot go upstream from Basel. According to the authorities' website river traffic is halted at Basel and the downstream section to France at a level of 820cm. Basel gauge is now showing 800cm. Basel newspaper confirms the procedure at 820cm. If you are in Basel about to embark or are sailing tonight it would be great to hear how things are going for you. notamermaid

Being able to see a river cruise ship on an open day is a rarity. There have been a few occasions this year. Next one coming up is Nicko Cruises who I do not remember doing any. On 26 November you can see the inside of the Nicko Spirit at the HGK Landebrücke in Cologne. Time is from 10am to 5pm. There is coffee and cake and - currywurst in the ship's restaurant. A prize draw will also happen, you guessed it, you can win a river cruise. Info from commercial website, but you can also look this up here in German: https://www.touristik-aktuell.de/nachrichten/kreuzfahrten/news/datum/2023/11/10/nicko-cruises-zeigt-die-spirit-in-koeln/ notamermaid

Thank you for your kind words. So glad it has been helpful and I took away a bit of worry. Good to read you are planning to go again to see the Christmas markets. It is a magical time. I always get excited for people who have not seen the lights and festivities and can look forward to experiencing Europe in this way. notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Wow, it sounds as if you have indeed been fortunate. Also seeing that coming up are likely problems with flooding rather than low water. I see the Mimir signalling in the Rhine Gorge but the signal is weak so you are most likely in Koblenz by now. So one of the two may be your ship: From: https://www.feratel.com/webcams/deutschland/koblenz.html Hope you enjoyed the castles and have a great time on "my" river and in Amsterdam. No flooding in Koblenz yet of course, all of Deutsches Eck is still exposed. notamermaid

Occasionally I look at the river cruising roll calls. It is fun to read when people enjoy themselves planning, cruising and giving advice to past cruisers. Lately I have been reading more not so happy comments about passengers being ill on the cruise with colds. But what comes up again and again is on the long European journeys passengers saying that they did not realize you cannot always dock in town and need a bus ride. So let us see for the Danube. It actually is the case that you dock in towns. Depending on company, how busy a place is, the harbour master's orders and water levels. It works all the way from Straubing to Budapest, Regensburg does but ships also seem to be in a harbour area further out. Granted, in Vienna much of docking is in Nussdorf, a suburb, these days. But several companies still dock in Vienna proper. The bigger issue is the Canal. Ever seen a river cruise ship in front of the skyline of Nuremberg or Bamberg in brochures? Yup, you guessed it, the rivers do not lend themselves to it. Bamberg is not too bad for docking I would say as regards distance. The problem with Passau is that it is very busy and needs to move ships out to other harbours. Check out the docks and the blue dots on marinetraffic.com and you can see how it looks in the various places. Here is the example for Nuremberg, arguably the worst docking spot, this morning: Remember it is correct to say you dock in Nuremberg as the commercial harbour is in the outskirts of Nuremberg. Just not in the city centre. "My" Belvedere is in the harbour this morning. 🙂 notamermaid

Thank you for your detailed review and your many comments on Eastern Europe. I was fascinated by seeing what was for me the gateway to the former Communist area on my cruise - Budapest. We did a coach ride through the outskirts of the city. The contrast between what was and what they have done since was great, but seeing it five time over may be a bit much for me. I also saw it in Bratislava on the return sail in a different way. I need to comment on Viking. The demographic you describe matches what people have mentioned here often. Since Viking has been so successful with their ocean ship venture we read here about more and more people coming from there to Viking river cruises. That is fine and works for many people but it is a different kind of holiday. The combination of company and itinerary may not have been the best for you. There are so many choices out there, give it some time and perhaps you may consider looking at river cruising again. Again, thank you for your great review. notamermaid

I suppose it is not that much different to cars. If it is roadworthy - fit to sail - a ship can carry on. The damage is assessed, the police launch looks at it and files a report - the press gets a release and a number for inquiries - and things run their normal pace again. In this case without the second lock though. The captain is described in the television report as a "Steuerfrau" which is of course the female to "Steuermann". Thankfully no one was hurt in all this but I can well imagine the lady's professional pride was... Locks are operated with signals of course, so green for free passage into the lock, red for stop. Gate fail, signal fail? Human error? Certainly activated are the signals for flooding, that is on the vigilance website Rhine, Neckar, Saar and Moselle are on 15 minute update. If you want the "full drama" (which it is not, just mild flooding) this is what it looks like: You can see that the situation in Koblenz and Cologne is still laid back. Maxau is our marker to watch now, there the level is 637cm, so not too bad yet. The forecast gives us a strong rise still - see the rise at Basel - so while there is a bit of uncertainty in the modelling there is the risk of a river traffic ban which happens at 750cm. We will find out more latest tomorrow lunchtime. On the Moselle by the way we have a wave going through Trier towards Cochem now. But it does not look like there may be a river traffic ban. The level is not that high. notamermaid.

Thank you for your kind words. Good to hear you enjoyed your cruise so much. Have fun planning your next holiday and safe travels always. notamermaid

Thank you for the info. I feared this could happen at some point. Not sure which bridge you mean along the way. I am looking with a bit of worry for river cruisers at the one in Passau which I can pinpoint and supply a figure for. For now Passau is okay, 511cm, when the level rises to 630cm passage is difficult for the river cruise ships with the highest superstructure. Pfelling is at 436cm now so a rise of a metre in less than 24 hours. The modelling is a bit more dramatic than what the river is doing but it may just be a delayed reaction. The forecast is giving a further strong rise as more or less definite but if that will cause problems at Passau is a bit uncertain still I would say. Flood warning for the Iller, a tributary to the Danube, in the Southwest of Bavaria so that additional volume of water will go through Regensburg in two to three days time. notamermaid

On Sunday I mentioned the Viking Orvar. While looking for another ship on a tracking website I saw that the tugboat was sailing again, in the Lower Middle Rhine valley. Later I noticed that she had docked in Boppard. Boppard has a multi-angle livestream webcam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4XYAgqUvE So I did a bit of spinning backwards on Saturday night. This is what I saved. Here she is coming round the bend towards Boppard: A few minutes later: A close-up/cut-out: Looks like a landing-stage. There she is approaching Boppard docking: Now you can make out the boat better and see that she is indeed pulling a landing stage: The boat is now in Rüdesheim. I wonder if she still has her cargo? From marinetraffic.com: Her destination is given as Worms. notamermaid

Good phrase. There is of course the possibility that the engine failed. It is still odd though. Well, we had the strange case of the barge Achim sailing into a lock on the Danube and then breaking in the middle and sinking... I doubt that we will read anything further about Iffezheim seeing that the ship and the ship in the lock at the time of the incident have already continued their journeys. It will be interesting to see if there will be delays - flooding could make things more complicated. notamermaid

It really is a weird one, the police report just says the investigation is ongoing. Whatever happened it certainly went spectacularly wrong. It was daylight so no confusion in the dark possible. notamermaid

Never noticed anything like this over the years but the other day a November sale came up: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/cosmos-globus-and-avalon-offer-november-savings Just found this one: https://www.travelweek.ca/news/cruise/scenic-group-rolls-out-black-friday-cyber-monday-deals-for-scenic-and-emerald-cruises/ notamermaid

Today I have seen the typical tourism stuff online articles of Christmas markets, cosy, charming, etc. again. And what do they suggest? Going to Cologne, Dresden and Rüdesheim. "Oh my goodness" I think to myself. I stay well clear of Cologne and have not got myself to join the crowds at Rüdesheim yet although in global terms it is just down the road for me. Dresden I do not know but I have seen the photos... I will be going to the small places again but I have not figured out where yet. Traben-Trabach on the Moselle is out, too busy and popular these days. Been to Andernach last year and enjoyed it, that one was indeed small and charming, with live animals and real local voices. Linz on the Rhine was also pleasant and small but a bit lacking somewhat. So perhaps a weekend one in a castle? Or a charity event? Will see how it goes. If I had time I would go to the North of my country. Lübeck where the marzipan comes from would be great and quite different from my area: https://www.visit-luebeck.com/culture/christmas-city-of-the-north/christmas-markets/traditional-christmas-market Yup, looks busy as well. I would like to see Metz Christmas market again (although it is a bit crowded) and the celebrations around Saint Nicolas day, the Patron saint of the Lorraine region. This is something special: https://www.epinal-touristoffice.com/discover/culture-heritage/saint-nicolas-in-epinal/the-tradition-of-saint-nicolas-in-epinal/the-true-story-of-saint-nicolas-de-myre And I recommend exploring Metz and Nancy which you could do from a Moselle river cruise. notamermaid

I am a bit behind with the news so missed this one yesterday, an accident. A barge hit one of the gates of Iffezheim lock on Saturday. The damage is immense and as such a gate is a special construction made to order it will cost more than a million euros and take several months to replace. The lock is unusable. As there is a second chamber river traffic is running smoothly but there may be delays. German news article: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/karlsruhe/iffezheim-staustufe-schiff-rhein-unfall-102.html notamermaid

A windy and rainy day today, with both increasing tomorrow along the Danube. The centre of the country will be wild again, that is the Harz mountains with the Brocken: Mild flooding for the Rhine, mild flood warning for the Upper Danube and preliminary warning for some tributaries of the Danube West of Munich. Pfelling at 336cm, uncertainty in the forecast but a rise to 500cm may happen. Passau is still the bigger uncertainty, but a rise will follow Pfelling in due course. The rise could stop short of being official flooding. We will know more tomorrow. notamermaid

Aahh, so a little explanation. It simply is derived from Church Latin where the feast days are referred to as "the feast of", for example Festum Sancti Martini. Mostly in the Catholic regions, such as Bavaria, it has stuck and is used to this day. In the Rhineland we hardly say it. Today we will see heavy rain and there are flood warnings for areas in the South of Baden-Würrtemberg. This water will partly go to the Rhine and partly to the Danube. If the forecast is right we will see flooding in the Upper Rhine valley and problems for river traffic. I had the suspicion this may happen before the month is out but it has nevertheless come suddenly I find. To give you an idea of what I mean: Maxau gauge (near Karlsruhe) is at 581cm, which is above the mean. By tomorrow it should reach 650cm which puts the river section on flood alert. Over 700cm is very much possible in the 12 hours following that. notamermaid

I tried the frozen ones from my local supermarket (REWE) after having heard good things about the tasty original in Portugal. Well, the frozen ones were almost inedible, not sure what went wrong with defrosting, if anything. When I had the opportunity recently at a market stall to eat them and heard that they were made at a special bakery I tried them again. Much better! But I think I need to declare them to not be my favourite bakery stuff. notamermaid

I see you used the Latin possessive... Rules really abound, had never looked at that closely. So the weather was indecisive which means there was no snow that means the winter will not be severe. Clouds and a bit of sunshine appears to mean we will get a winter of ups and downs. At the moment I can say that we appear to have left low water realm on the Rhine for this year. I tried to spot the hull of the Amadeus Nova, but the Zasavica III dropped it off at Ginsheim-Gustavsburg on the Main and I have not been able to follow up on the next carrier, i.e. the barge that is supposed to pull it alongside. I did spot something else though on camera: the "busy bee" of Viking that is the Viking Orvar pulling something along in the Rhine Gorge. Will get back to that. notamermaid

The level at Pfelling continues to be good, up again to now 319cm. It is cold this morning, snow for more of Bavaria soon? It is snowing in the mountains close to the Alps and the highest parts of the Black Forest, so not anywhere where river cruise ships can go. But the afternoons are too warm and there will quite a bit of rain. notamermaid

Bread with pig lard - that is Schmalzbrot! 🙂 Used to be eaten a lot round here in Germany. Thank you for reporting with all the great photos and the videos. notamermaid

I love puff pastry in a roll from my local supermarket. So versatile. I have used it for finger food, baking with leftover fruit, cheese parcels. Planning to try Spritzgebäck (that is dough pushed through a machine or piping bag that creates shapes) again using an older recipe with rum. Problem I have is that it requires egg yolk. So what to do with the egg whites? I am not good at making meringue. Macarons? Or German coconut biscuits? I am seriously out of practice... Around this time of year we eat Martinsgans - Saint Martin's legend says that he was hiding so he would not be appointed bishop but the geese betrayed his hiding place - but I have never cooked goose. Have only had it in a restaurant many years ago. It is on the specials menu at many places in November. By the way - has anyone had goose on a river cruise? notamermaid