notamermaid

Interesting words. We sometimes use Bitumen as the word for tar, i.e. on a road or on a roof. The middle of nowhere is "in der Pampa", a place that is somewhere either barren or far off or boring or deserted, often a mix of all those choices. A standard German word would be Einöde for a really deserted place notamermaid

Pfelling gauge doing really well: 349cm, still on the way up. Let us have an "interim middle of the month" screen shot to see the difference to July: You do not want to see the graph at MNW, RNW is tricky, MW is very good. notamermaid

My pleasure. Thank you for following along. October - that should mean lovely sunsets and some autumn colours. That month can still bring some really pleasant temperatures for touring and enjoying the sundeck. I hope the weather will be great for you and you get some great views of - well - everything really. notamermaid

For those interested, you can download the docking plan for the Moselle harbour area here: https://www.koblenz-touristik.de/de/geschaeftsfelder/hafen I do not know of a publicly available docking plan for the Rhine. Viking uses their own private landing stage and I have never seen such info published by them. For Rüdesheim, the area of where the ships dock is mapped out here, click on "Hier" in the text: https://www.fremdenverkehrsgesellschaft.de/schiffslandebrücken And this is the timetable: https://www.landebruecken.de/timetable notamermaid

Welcome to CruiseCritic. Thank you for saying hello from your cruise. I always enjoy spotting the Inspire on the river. I like her design very much. marinetraffic.com tells me that you are sailing downstream, so you will be in Koblenz in a few hours time (unless you have a stop along the way). The Inspire is not listed in the harbour plan for the Moselle, so I reckon you will dock on the Rhine. A favourite spot of mine, the Rhine Gorge "ending in style", is the gateway of the hills, on the left bank is Schloss Stolzenfels and on the right bank is Burg Lahneck. From on land, on a specific road, you can get them both together in a photo, not sure if it works from the river. Koblenz is not in the Rhine Gorge anymore topographically but is part of the UNESCO World heritage site. Have a great time on "my" river. notamermaid

Braubach would be a bit far for a Koblenz port stop, that village is really only for the Marksburg excursion unless you skip Koblenz in your itinerary. But Viking has its particular way of handling this, i.e. drop people off at Braubach, pick them up at Koblenz or variations of that. The "double parking" at Koblenz Deutsches Eck is standard for Viking. As far as I know they hardly ever dock on the Moselle. The webcam at Koblenz: https://www.feratel.com/en/webcams/germany/koblenz.html with a snap shot if that is what it is called of a few minutes ago: While writing this post, the Compass Opera has just left Koblenz and is sailing downstream through the Neuwied Basin and then into the mountain region of the Lower Middle Rhine valley. Feratel has some of the best webcams for spotting river cruise ships in Germany. The cables of the Seilbahn will be too thin to show up on the map I posted and the cars of it are probably too small as well, one may see them perhaps when zooming further in on marinetraffic.com. A note on Koblenz: while the city is over 2000 years old, little remains of the oldest structures, but some towers and a few wall segments of the Roman town and early Medieval city remain that I am sure your tour guide will point out to you. "Deutscher Kaiser" is one of the oldest buildings remaining and not far from there is the "Alte Burg". This is how William Turner put Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein on canvas, from Moselle with the Balduin Bridge: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/19235/ehrenbreitstein-mosel notamermaid

So I have missed the transfer to the Rhone. Here is a the article on the Riverside Ravel from travelweekly: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tourism/second-riverside-luxury-cruises-ship-christened notamermaid

Good to read that everything went smoothly. Have a good night and a good day tomorrow. If you are going to Regensburg be prepared for a hot day. notamermaid

Just for a bit of fun, here is a screenshot of marinetraffic.com how it shows Koblenz tonight - to which I will add a few comments: Koblenz is a city on two rivers, the Rhine and Moselle. The name comes from Latin and in the translation (the old word) means "where the rivers flow together". The Roman settlement is in the Medieval town walls which show on the map as a ring touching the Moselle embankment about where the blue dot for the Monet is. You can see this marked on a photo here: https://www.kuladig.de/Objektansicht/O-100372-20140819-8 Three bridges cross the Moselle but there is also a tiny ferry, the Liesel, which you can see docked in the small harbour. In Koblenz river cruise ships both dock on the Moselle and the Rhine regularly, I have already mentioned the Monet, see if you can spot other names. I know, sorry, it is a small scale. To the left of the large bridge is the last lock on the Moselle, in the screen shot a ship called Eltz is in there. The tip at the confluence shining in light grey is of course Deutsches Eck. The shape was given in the 19th century. On the right river bank is Ehrenbreitstein with the fortress on the hill. In the photo just below there is the blue dot of the "Schaengel", that is another ferry. I mentioned the small harbour the other day, when the regional television had the Viking Orvar in a shot, showing her leaving to sail downstream. At the bottom right of the screen shot is Pfaffendorf Bridge and jut out of view is the peninsula Oberwerth which was an island originally. Just a bit further upstream are the last two bridges (km 588) before, if you travel upstream, you enter the Rhine Gorge and have to rely on crossing on a ferry as the next bridge is beyond the end of the Rhine Gorge at Mainz (km 504). More on bridges to come. notamermaid

Thank you. That makes more sense. I was wondering how you play tennis on a small court as the tennis ball is a bit fast. I vaguely remember reading about this. I think I would prefer a skittles alley. Or a darts board. Although that may be bit more difficult as you need a collapsible wall mount. Beer and darts - hmm, another idea for a "more male" river cruise. notamermaid

The folk on Binnenschifferforum have of course also taken photos of the AmaMagna and one man has recently spotted something new on the ship. A tennis court! Not sure how long it has been there, but it sounds as if it is a recent addition: https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?83701-Amamagna-KFGS-02329183&p=461555#post461555 With her extra width she is a good ship for this. Height restrictions (bridges) make it difficult to add amenities to the top deck of course. A tennis court is easily disassembled. notamermaid

Thanks for the info. Okaayyy, I am a bit surprised as Pfelling gauge stands at 322cm. But your tour operator may well think ahead and not risk anything or the ship is running late. Anyway, an individual decision that does not mean other companies do the same. I hope an excursion to Regensburg is possible for you. Transfer to Vilshofen instead of Regensburg should not be a big deal. A hot day in Germany, a few clouds with thunderstorms and rain are still sweeping over the Bavarian Forest and parts of the Czech Republic. Forecast for tomorrow shows 35 Celsius for around Regensburg and Nuremberg. notamermaid

Yes, that is what I meant. Dahoam is dahoam is the sort of expression, when you hear it spoken in a room in Bavaria by a man beyond age 60, the walls clad with wood and winter outside the door, you feel what the word Heimat contains. Food for the soul. A hot day in the Rhine valley. Kaub at 167cm. All looking good. notamermaid

This is the route planner: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/journey-planner/ Remich Gare routière and then along the river. Corniche as CielBleu says takes you away from the river. The road along the river is called Esplanade. notamermaid

Yes, they blasted the fuse out of the bomb. Sounds tricky indeed. All went well in the end but they also say in the video that they may well find another one before the end of the year. Rüdesheim was not really important but the proximity of Bingen and the bridge meant that bombs went down on the Rüdesheim side of the river as well. Golden rule when walking along the river banks close to the Rhine: never pick anything metallic up that looks suspicious. A few years ago a lady found an object that had the shape of ammunition and called the police. But it turned out not be made of metal. Well, better be safe than sorry. You really know "Heimat" well. I must admit, I never watched a complete series of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat_(film_series) It is interesting that it states that the word Heimat has no real equivalent in English. "Homeland" comes close but the kind of emotion that you connect with the area and carry around with you for the rest of your life is not in the word "homeland" but in "Heimat" in my opinion. notamermaid

Between Regensburg and Budapest the first problematic section is Straubing to Vilshofen which includes Pfelling gauge and then, from what we have learnt here, next, that is when the level of the river falls further, is a shallow bit around the Danube knee extending into Budapest. That is most likely what you have read about. In last year's thread we have reports of people disembarking at Komarno as their respective ship could not enter Budapest. notamermaid

Let us just say that it is looking pleasant now, Pfelling is at 314cm. Could stay pleasant but as it is "only" 24cm to 290cm from this reading, that can be reached quickly but for now it does not look that way. You say Prague to Vilshofen. Do you mean you start in Prague, transfer to Vilshofen and embark there? If your cruise is going downstream from there things should be fine as you avoid Pfelling and the river should be fine in Austria and most likely in Slovakia and Hungary as well from what I can judge from past years. The figures at the gauges are a marker for the shipping industry and not a perfect way of determining issues for river cruise ships. I cannot point to figures at Budapest but overall - as in my post above - experiences of past cruisers kindly posting from their cruise give us indications of what is still good at Budapest and when a low may be problematic. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

@RDVIK2016 thanks for the explanation, @Canal archive, that type in your photo looks exactly like the ones walking along our river banks. Some species are a nuisance or even a hazard in a few spots, those mainly the rats along the river but the birds soiling the swimming pools are of course not good for human health, the local rabbits have a habit of living underground where they are not wanted. They loved the new lawns and flower displays just before the federal horticultural show in Koblenz in 2011. So the city got birds of prey to get rid of the problem before the show started. We have had more thunderstorms here but the air is not that refreshed, a bit muggy again in towns. Temperatures are due to rise to more summery 30 to 32 Celsius. Level at Kaub pleasant of course, just a minor hint of hitting 100cm towards the end of the month. But we will review that on a later day. notamermaid

I mentioned Weißenthurmer Werth in a previous post. "Werth" is a standard old word for a river island in German. There are lots of them and on the Rhine we get quite a few of them, mostly uninhabited. That does not mean nothing is happening there. It only means people are not registered as living there. Nonnenwerth is one that did have residents, it gets its name from the old nunnery. The last few years have been troublesome, so I will swiftly move onto its neighbouring island - Grafenwerth. That island is under ownership of the town Bad Honnef. The island is a park, a recreation area and has a swimming pool. That alone is unusual but what I find special about it is the fact that in the marina is anchored the old fishing barge "Aranka" and one has a lovely view of Drachenfels mountain downstream. Fun fact: the island also has a KD excursion boat landing stage. You can have a look at Wikipedia https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafenwerth or check out photos on Google images. notamermaid

Being German and interested in literature I am familiar with the Nibelungenlied, a very old saga. You may know parts of it in the shape of the Wagner opera "Das Rheingold" and other works. The work is associated with towns along the Rhine – as the word Rheingold suggests – but Wagner used some artistic license. Worms is a city mentioned in the epic work though. I was a bit surprised to read and experience on my river cruise that Linz on the Danube is associated with the saga. They have a monument and a bridge. This is the monument: https://stadtgeschichte.linz.at/denkmal/Default.asp?action=denkmaldetail&id=1251 And this is the bridge: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenbrücke_(Linz)#/media/Datei:Nibelungenbruecke_Sept06.JPG Other than that the city is a bit quiet about it. At the Nibelungen Bridge is the landing stage for river cruise ships: https://www.donauregion.at/en/services/danube-shipping/landing-stages/oesterreich-poi/detail/430002006/shipping-pier-linz-nibelungen-nr-12.html More docks in Austria: https://www.donauregion.at/en/services/danube-shipping/landing-stages.html notamermaid

It does sound quite different to me, although I am not too familiar with French variations. Several years ago I roamed around our digital television stations and found a French one. Over a few days I tried to watch and understand but got little of what they were saying. Could not understand why until I realized that the station is in Canada. Until then I had never heard a Canadian speak French. As you know, in Germany we have so many dialects and in them numerous variations. People in Cologne and Bonn have a similar way of speaking, but I prefer the "Bönnsch" which to me sounds softer. I may be biased because my father's father spoke Bönnsch. In linguistics there are typical sentences to show variations in dialect. One example. The sentence in English is: "In winter, the dry leaves are flying around in the air." In High (standard) German this is: "Im Winter fliegen die trockenen Blätter in der Luft herum." In Bönnsch this is: "Em Winte fleeje de drüjje Blaade en de Luff eröm." I cannot speak a dialect properly but my German is heavily coloured by my upbringing and I sound very "Rhenish" when I speak. Place me in Hamburg or Berlin or Munich and people can quickly tell that I come from somewhere between Speyer and Düsseldorf. And if they are familiar with my area they will place me within 50 km of where I was raised - or closer. notamermaid

It is cloudy and rainy in the parts of the Rhine valley but the rain is not substantial enough to get the level at Kaub up. When a higher volume of water comes from way up in the Upper Rhine valley we may see a small rise. After that it is "downhill" but the figures will most likely stop short of 100cm. notamermaid

Although overall on a downward trend, the level at Pfelling is still doing fine. 323cm. Budapest had risen a lot apparently, now down to 226cm. That is still pleasant of course. notamermaid

Yes. A very big difference between the two and Swiss German is a real challenge. I can understand some of it but could fail to understand whole sentences in a conversation easily. I have seen it subtitled in documentaries in Germany, just to difficult to follow for a viewer that is not living close to the area where it is spoken. notamermaid

Thank you for taking us along on your river cruise and through Prague. Have a great time. notamermaid