steamboats

Weather is looking pretty good here in Saarbrücken 😉 right now. steamboats

Yes, and there are mutiple threads covering this topic. steamboats

Pretty dark clouds when I just left Munich by train and it started to rain. There are warnings for severe thunderstorms for today in the Alps and pre Alps region. steamboats

Sorry, I didn´t answer to the last part... I´d suggest to walk to Guidecca Palanca (Stop B) for Line 2 to Piazzale Roma. For Sacca Fisola you have to walk to the bridge and then back to the Guidecca Canal. At Sacca Fisola there´s also line 2 to Piazzale Roma. steamboats

@Vineyard View yes, there might be cruise line staff waiting at the watertaxi stop which is inside the port basin (where the Linea Blu used to end). But there won´t be any staff at the ACTV/Alilaguna stop at Tronchetto or at the People Mover station Stazione Marittima. steamboats

As I said before, the smaller ships dock in Fusina. The larger ships like MSC dock in Marghera. But for all those ships the check in is at one of the Venice Passenger Terminals at Stazione Marittima in Venice where the ships docked prior to the cruise ship ban. There are a lot of terminal buildings there: Isonzo 1 and 2, 103, 107/108, 109/110, 123. The only one where ships are still docking is San Basilio 22. Smaller ships which are still allowed to pass through the Guidecca Canal can dock there and also the only river Cruise ship which is still operating there - the S.S. La Venezia by Uniworld. There's also another docking area left of St. Mark's Square which is called Sette Martiri where the river cruise ship can dock when San Basilio is occupied. steamboats

Yes, there are two companies - ACTV, which is the public transportation of the city, and Alilaguna, which is a private operator. steamboats

@loriva many of the vaporetti lines do end/start at Piazzale Roma like line 2 which also serves Tronchetto. Line 1 is the major line going through the Canal Grande and stops at every stop. Line 2 is the fast line through Canal Grande which doesn´t stop at each stop. Lines 3, 4.1 and 5 also go to Piazzale Roma. This is the main stop in Venice as it connects to the road leading to Venice. steamboats

As for Germany the traditional opening date is the Friday prior to the weekend of the 1st of Advent - which would be Dec 1st this year. But more and more markets do start out early now. Even when they start out early they are not allowed to open on Sunday, Nov 26th (Sunday in commemoration of the death), which is a so called quiet holiday where no kind of action is allowed (no music, no dancing...). So the famous Christkindlesmarkt at Nuremberg does not open until Dec 1st. The main market in Munich does open Nov 27th. Others do open Nov 23rd. Passau opens Nov 29th. Regensburg is Nov 27th, Thurn und Taxis Nov 24th. In Vienna the one at the city hall opens Nov 10th (others follow Nov 15th). So Nov 16th might be too early for any of the markets. steamboats

@loriva it may depend on the cruise line at which terminal you have to do the check-in. 107/108 was usually Royal Caribbean Group and with Silversea we checked in there too (as Silversea is part of the RCG). NCHL (which includes Regent) was usually at 117 but that may have changed. 103 and the Isonzo terminals were used by Costa and MSC. There is a big sign at the entrance of the port area where the ships do their check-in (ship name and terminal number). I doubt that you will find anyone of Regent at the vaporetto stop at Tronchetto. Tronchetto is an island and is the parking lot for visitors of Venice which arrive by car. The cruise parking is located between the terminal 117 and 107/108. It is quite a walk from the vaporetto stop to the people mover station Troncchetto. For the cruise terminals you have to take the people mover to the middle stop at Stazione Marittima and walk from there to the terminal buildings. There used to be the terminus station of Linea Blu by Alilaguna right in front of terminal 103. But obviously Alilaguna is now serving the Troncchetto stop and then the train station (Ferrovia) St. Lucia. It is easier to take the vaporetto to Piazzale Roma and then the people mover to Stazione Marittima. The people mover itself is 1.50 Euro single ride. If you do have a daily ticket, it´s included in the ticket. There won´t be anyone at the people mover station at Stazione Marittima by the cruise line. You have to walk and schlepp your luggage to the terminal building. Sometimes there is a free shuttle bus from the people mover serving all terminals (those which are busy that day). I´ve seen it when we disembarked. But this one is not really something you should rely on. At least in the past it was not really reliable and walking is the faster option. steamboats

I´ve been to Venice in August. We were bussed from the airport to the Venice Passenger Terminal at Stazione Marittima. The check-in was there. Then we boarded another bus to Fusina where the ship (Silver Nova in our case) was docked. For disembarkation the people were directly bussed to the airport or in our case to the cruise terminal at Stazione Marittima. When we returned there were 3 ships "in port" - Silver Nova and Nautica in Fusina and MSC Sinfonia in Marghera. All people boarding had to go via the Venice Cruise Terminal. MSC had even boats going over to Marghera. There is no check-in facility at Fusina and there is no parking lot for cruisers. Same for Marghera. The World Navigator was docked at Basilio (which is directly in Venice) but that´s a 200 passenger ship. The Crystal ships are too big to go into Venice. So they pretty likely dock in Fusina. The bigger ships go to Marghera. steamboats

@notamermaid we had floodings in August but rarely. Remember the big one which hit Dresden in 2002. And we also had floods in August in Passau. Not the typical time of the year for flooding but we had it before. steamboats

All river gauges in Germany have crested by now and only two of them are showing a level 1 or 2 but falling rapidly. Passau is not on a high water level anymore but of course the river is still higher than usual. There´s still a high water warning in effect for Passau. Seems the wave is through right now. steamboats

Looks like the wave is now at Straubing... steamboats

@Host Jazzbeau usually PMs are meant for publishing and there's no Copyright violation but I'm not sure about the CC guidelines. As I said, I would have posted a link but this was in a PDF file in a Google dropbox which was linked on the Transcend website. But thanks for finding the Seatrade link. I haven't seen that yet. steamboats

So here´s the final entry of our second day in Venice. Thanks for following! steamboats

The easiest way to check is actually Google Maps ;-). Anyway it doesn´t tell you how high the bridges are and whether the river is closed. But that´s actually not easy to find out. Here in Munich we reached level 2 yesterday but it crested. Passau for sure will have a couple of more days of ups and downs regarding the water levels. The Inn river (confluence at Passau) is carrying a lot of water coming from Austria and Bavaria. Our Isar river has a lot of water flowing down to the Danube river. The Danube river West of the navigable area has a lot of water flowing down to Passau. So there are a couple of more waves coming. steamboats

I do have a tabby British Shorthair 😉. Something I haven´t mentioned. There´s a department store in Venice called Fonadaco Dei Tedeschi. They have a rooftop terrace which can be visited for free with a great view over Venice. But you need an online reservation for it. We had one but unfortunately for the second day. As we originally wanted to stay for two nights (but then the flights back home became too expensive for day 3) we had a reservation for day 2 - by the time we had to head to the airport. So we cancelled. Our reservation was back online a minute after cancellation but unfortunately nothing popped up for day 1. So we had to skip this and chosed the Campanile of San Giorgio. More about that in todays entry which will go online later. steamboats

As the ship is ADA compliant I was sure that they might have something which is only set up on demand. steamboats

So unfortunately there´s a day coming when you have to disembark. But fortunately we have another night in Venice to explore the city. So here´s day 1 on Venice and Burano. steamboats

Passau has crested but there is more water coming. So there will be another rise caused by the confluencing rivers. Plus the water is still rising on the Western parts of the Danube river (which is not navigable). Neuburg an der Donau hasn´t crested yet and is still rising. It´s not that bad in Passau. With a real high water that quare in front of the town hall (the recessed building with the tower) is flooded too. There are still cars parking there. steamboats

Actually Lake Constance and the Rhine river part flowing into the lake is flooding so there will be some water coming down the Rhine river too. It´s just the question when and how much. steamboats

Thanks, no need to worry about me. My home is high above our local Isar river (actually at least 90ft/30m). And the river has plenty of room so usually there are no buildings flooded. Wasserburg crested right over level 3. Passau is on level 3 right now and won´t reach level 4 according to the current forecast. You can check the webcam Webcam | PASSAU where you can clearly see some flooding. But the people there are used to it. steamboats

The county of Rosenheim has an even more severe warning. Wasserburg am Inn expects level 4. So all is flowing down to Passau which has a pre warning. steamboats

There´s a lot of water flowing down the Danube river til the 19th 😉 (to use a German saying). steamboats