notamermaid

While the situation at Passau on the Danube is not good, there is no flooding along the Rhine. We have basically the same weather pattern at the moment but the clouds have unhappily favoured the Danube basin. All gauges are rising on the Rhine now but the situation is good. Kaub is at 160cm but due to rise as a high volume of water is coming from the Upper Rhine valley. Expected level for Thursday evening 300cm. The Upper Rhine valley may be pushed to the warning level for mild flooding tomorrow. notamermaid

Passau gauge tonight: Level 4 is expected, which is 850cm. notamermaid

Oh dear. Sorry to hear about the affected cruises. Yes, rare. Hope things go smoothly tomorrow. Have a great time in Prague. notamermaid

A little patience and waiting works for photos, I agree. I fear that in Halstatt this would cause a backlog, you know, queuing up to take that exact selfie shot that 100 people have taken in the last 10 minutes or so. I would love to see Bath, but would I enjoy it? Perhaps, because apart from the Crescent I would head to the garage and that spot at a street corner where they dug in a series of "Time Team". Currently though I am much more into exploring small towns in Germany. I have this old map of Germany where interesting places are marked. Well, alright I admit, I loved Rothenburg ob der Tauber just like millions of people before me. It helped us that river cruise and Asian tourists were absent at the time. We were welcomed with open arms. Passau harbour lists 18 ships for today, a good 52,000 people live in the town. 18 ships of varying capacity, my rough calculation based on ship name tells me that this could be 2,400 passengers (assuming that ships are not full but well booked). A couple of Viking ships are included. 300,000 people came on river cruise ships to Passau in 2018. I reckon by the end of 2023 Passau will be back to that figure. We had a discussion on the topic here https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2523055-will-overtourism-affect-river-cruising/page/5/#comments but we know what happened. Few outside of the industry probably gave the topic any thought for some time. notamermaid

Thank you for your review. Good to read you had such a great time. I found Budapest fascinating, apart from it being a fabulous city I welcomed being able to learn something of the country in the Soviet era. Bratislava interesting as well. It must be even more striking going further East. So much to learn. notamermaid

Oh, not good. notamermaid

On a side note to this. I have coined the phrase "instagrammed to death", at least among my circle of people to describe a place like the Hallstatt spot. Everybody takes a photo for Instagram to the extent that it wrecks the place. It is the reason I keep favourite spots sometimes to myself. Working in the tourism industry I have spent a bit more than the standard amount of time reflecting on what social media and tourists can do. notamermaid

Thank you. Hm, yes, tricky. I was wondering if it may not be a bit too much in a short space of time. The Isar is downstream from Pfelling of course, I see no problem for river cruise ships as yet, but with the Isar and Inn influencing Passau, we should have a look at the situation at the bridge there. Eyeyeh, that is a sharp rise in the graph! The gauge now says 613cm. May turn out a bit too little headroom. Will see how it goes and perhaps someone sends us a report from onboard a ship. All the best to you and Munich. notamermaid

I am not sure if it works as a comparison - but for me it is a bit like the lake that is saturated with plants to such an extent that the ecosystem turns. It is a process called eutrophication (yes, I did a lot of biology at school 😉). Rüdesheim for me is at saturation point as regards river cruise ships. This overtourism is the reason I advocate for alternative river cruises, meaning alternative ports and fewer passengers, that meaning 110m ships. On the Rhine it would work very well. You just need to ignore the television adverts and are open to other history/cityscape and smaller places. Rüdesheim and Passau were popular destinations before the river cruising boom - say 2010 - so started already on a high frequency. By the way, until fairly recently Heidelberg has boasted about its popularity and ever increasing numbers of visitors. There the tide has turned a little. They now prefer tourists that stay longer than two hours... notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 400cm. It is raining again over the valley. notamermaid

Yes, the times of overtourism are back... Prague and Amsterdam decided in the wake of "temporary non-tourism" to deal with the problem. Passau is a serious contender for overtourism and if you asked the people in 2019 some would have argued they are already in that state. notamermaid

@ultramax12 @island lady Thank you for your kind words. With tensions easing - for now - may I throw a question into the wider round? Just curious. I mentioned Kelheim (with Weltenburg marked on the map). I remember reading about an excursion. Was that Viking? Does that still exist? Anybody been recently? Oops, that is three questions. notamermaid P.S: Pfelling at 351cm. Looks to have reached a plateau.

The Limes, the Roman frontier, which separated the Roman Empire from Germania, is not so present on the Danube as it cuts from Rheinbrohl on the Rhine through countryside and ends at Eining (the Roman Abusina) on the Danube. This small place is located further upstream from where ships are allowed to go. The Canal connects to the Danube at Kelheim, see the symbol with the name Römerkastell Abusina: But on a Danube river cruise you will follow Roman history as here the river basically acts as the border. In the link below see the Limes coming down from the Northwest to Abusina. You can also see Regensburg already existed in late Roman times. Castra Regina, nice short name, Roman Salzburg is bit more of a mouthful . https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donaulimes#/media/Datei:Rätischer_Donaulimes.png notamermaid

My pleasure, have a great cruise. Lovely to read your excitement. Europe kind of brings me to the Romans, I have written a few posts in the Rhine thread. Kind of keep forgetting though how huge the areas of Europe are that share that Roman history. notamermaid

Just to add: the Elbe is of course far into "Germania Magna" and while it is claimed that Romans did some exploring in the region, this seems to never have been more than brief visits from what I understand. As you have noticed in the past I do not have much charitable stuff to say about the German capital and if we were allowed to choose a city for that purpose Berlin would not even make it into the top ten of choices. While Cologne and Trier were towns of for that age huge proportions, the Spree basin that would 1000 years later have two small settlements (eventually becoming Berlin) was a swamp, quite literally. Biting my lip, staying civil and moving on... From Capital to Capitol and therefore back to (Roman) civilization. St. Maria im Kapitol is a magnificent old church in Cologne and as the name implies literally stands where the Roman Capitol was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Maria_im_Kapitol And from there we will take the car/chariot/walk out of Cologne and head straight - and I mean straight - to Zülpich, which you may have guessed, is another Roman settlement. There we will already be in the Eifel region. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 337cm. notamermaid

Hope so too. Would be a welcome change to all this fretting and the online reports of drought facing us again, etc. And welcome to Cruisecritic! Good to read new names in the past week and see people joining. If you are new to river cruising, I hope you have such an amazing time that you get hooked. Grin. Seriously, from what we have seen over the last few years, very few people do not like it, the vast majority have a great time and some "are addicted" after the first to come back for many more cruises. notamermaid

That is a very unusual combination of choices. Really interesting. Glad you find Viva Cruises an option. Never been on a ship so far but they really look nice when I see them sailing. There are a few good reviews available now. Not sure if you know this one, a poster on another thread gave us a video of this guy: Weather: you may find November a bit chilly for a Texan, I agree. You will normally not be in snow when sailing on the Rhine, November is often still mild with us, but night frost can make morning excursions unpleasant. The November mists are adorable (for me anyway). December brings a bit more snow and potentially really frosty days. notamermaid

Good reaction at Kaub, as expected. Level at 147cm and still rising. notamermaid

Fun fact: Both Hadrian's Wall and the Limes in Germany are part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site Borders of the Roman Empire. I have been to Hadrian's Wall and live not too far from the Limes. If you are very interested in the Romans: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/430/ Past the hills, down that motorway, let us say not too far a drive in the car, the vast "Germania Magna" starts. In river cruise terms this means that the Rhine is part of the old Roman Empire, the Main is mostly not, the Danube mostly is. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 304cm. notamermaid

Rain still coming down over the Danube valley. Pfelling gauge has shot up to 286cm! I hope this will still look as promising in 24 hours. notamermaid

A short addition, digressing just a little from what I had planned to write about, to my post #557. I meant to say of course that Cologne has seven bridges spanning the Rhine. There are many more smaller bridges with some of them crossing bodies of water and one of them is on the Rhine but not spanning it. That is the swing bridge at Deutz harbour. By sheer coincidence I have found out today that after extensive restoration work the bridge will fully reopen (with the exception of some car traffic) on 28 August, i.e Monday: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/politik-und-verwaltung/presse/mitteilungen/26055/index.html The bridge is over 100 years old and the steel ornamented in Art Nouveau style. River cruise ships dock there sometimes. It is here, left side of the photo is the Rhine: The satellite image shows two river cruise ships and my screenshot shows three police launch signalling (Wsp is short for Wasserschutzpolizei). In Cologne some roads still follow exactly the old Roman grid and when you walk along "Hohe Straße", literally the High Street and in Cologne really a shopping street like in Britain, you walk along the old axis South to North, the Cardo Maximus. Anyway, we will instead follow the Via Agrippa out of Cologne via what is now Luxemburger Straße through the Eifel region and that bridge through the swamp. notamermaid

Kaub gauge at 110cm. We may have seen the bottom figure this morning already. If not so then during the next 36 hours. After that the trend is up and for good levels till 4 September, with a reasonable chance for longer than that. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 256cm. I suspect an influence by the locks and dams. But good news is that partly heavy rain has been sweeping over the Danube catchment area. notamermaid