RDVIK2016

I saw a post today from someone on the Bavarian-Bohemian border where he said he enjoys spring, summer, autumn, and winter - just not all in one day! and he added "So a sauwedder" ("such terrible weather" in Bavarian) In recent days ago they had highs well into the 20s C (70s F) and lows below freezing. When travelers wonder what they should pack one has to say to be prepared for anything.

Bayern to Rügen! They must have had fun with that. I had a friend here in the US who was from Fehmarn. He and my Bavarian first wife had some fun with their dialects. (edited to add - He left Fehmarn because there was no way for him to earn a living there, either as a fisherman, after the British forces punished locals for having a side job of smuggling from Denmark and Sweden by beaching the boats and burning them.) The brewery's 10er Gespann comes at 7:20 until the end of this video - right after the boy on the cart drawn by two miniature ponies. There are two views of team and wagon viewed from either side. Video should open at 07:12 so you don't have to skim through. (There is an eight-horse team earlier in the video)

Roß seems to be in quite regular use in southern Germany and Austria. Besides the Haflinger one of the other breeds that is beautiful is the so-called "Schwarzwälder Fuchs" with a blond mane grown long. That town I mentioned with the huge Pentecost Monday procession also has an annual "Roßtag" where they celebrate pre-internal combustion farming technology. A highlight has been the local brewery wagon drawn by a team (Gespann) of up to 10 "Brauereigäule" (I only make out eight in recent photos. The former handler has passed away - he was also the brew master). RDVIK

notamermaid, Where the horses are used for plowing they can be called an Ackergaul, right? Usually I heard the horses in the processions being referred to as Kaltblüter - not that their blood is any colder than that of any other horse, but because of their cool temperaments. Roß is very commonly used or even Schimmel for a white horse. One of the most common breeds is the Haflinger, but many other breeds of draft horses are represented in these processions. At a nearby town, Bad Kötzting they have been carrying of a very large procession every year since 1412. It is not unusual for there to be 900 horses and riders taking part in the Kötztinger Pfingsritt. RDVIK

Notamermaid, Referring back to our "language nerd" discussion in January: Here is another use of the Latin genitive for naming German Roman Catholic religious observances. This one is "Leonhardi". St Leonhard's remembrance day is November 6, but he is honored at other times of the year also. As he is the patron saint of farm animals, especially horses, mounted processions, called a Leonhardiritt, are held. This is a link to the Leonhardiritt just held two weeks ago on Easter Monday, as every year, in the Upper Palatinate town of Furth im Wald. Some of the horses are just magnificent looking animals. https://www.tvaktuell.com/mediathek/video/tradition-leonhardiritt-in-furth-im-wald-2/

Jazzbeau, The Rhine and Danube both have deltas, although the way the Netherlands has reclaimed land it his hard to tell, but The channels that continue to carry the names all the way to where they empty, respectively, into the North Sea and the Black Sea are not the channels navigable by larger vessels. Actually it really looks the Waal, which carries over 70% of the volume of the Rhine from Emmerich to the North Sea, is the branch that should be called the Rijn all the way to the mouth. However the Dutch give that name to a small distributary which eventually also reaches the North Sea north of the Waal and another branch of the Rijn/Waal/Maas/Lek/whatever at Rotterdam. (Maps from Wikipedia) Ship travel on the Danube to and from the Black Sea has to take the Sulina branch through the Danube Delta. This branch has been canalized for shipping and remains in Romania. When we hear about Ukrainian grain being shipped up the Danube it can come by barge up the Sulina canal or most likely gets loaded on to barges at Izmail assuming they can save the grain from Russian missiles. Izmail is 80 kilometers from the Black Sea, and about as far as the Danube is navigable headed downstream. From there barges have to backtrack upstream and meet shipping from the Sulina and the St.George branch. All this does not explain why the Danube is measured from the mouth and the Rhine from the "source" (sort of), but that is the way it is. The source of the Danube can be pinpointed in the Black Forest. Meanwhile the Rhine is measured from the Bodensee at Konstanz even though there is more of the Rhine, the Alpine Rhine, emptying into the other end of the lake with sources farther up in the Alps. Confusing!! , emptyi

notamermaid, Isn't Danube kilometer 0 at the mouth of the river in Ukraine where it empties into the Black Sea? Which differs from the Rhine which is measured from the source at Lake Constance. RDVIK

There will be no ship traffic on the Main-Danube Canal from 8 April to 28 April as 300 employees will be working around the clock to address 150 repairs and inspections. Projects will include replacement of some lock gates as well as repairs on gate drives and lock controls. Twenty lock chambers will be out of service and seven will be totally or partially drained for inspections. https://www.tvaktuell.com/main-donau-kanal-fuer-drei-wochen-wegen-arbeiten-gesperrt-597015/

On the first Viking river cruise that my wife and I took the Captain and his 1st and 2nd officers seemed more accessible to passengers than they were on our others. That Captain was Bulgarian. The two officers who were also qualified to maneuver the ship he referred to as his Pilots. On that ship they were both Slovaks and one of them seemed to be topside often and available to converse with - I befriended one by listing all the Slovak ice hockey players I knew. I spent a little bit of time in the wheelhouse with him and the Chief Engineer (a German). I only know that the Captains of our other two ships were a Slovak (with a Hungarian name as many Slovaks are ethnic Hungarians) and a German from a town on the Elbe. Not much was seen of their "Pilots". It may have been that management, after Viking had a couple of serious accidents since our first cruise, put a short leash on those who man the helm of the ships. On our last cruise on the Rhine they did not even offer the usual group visit to the wheelhouse. We had the same German Hotel Manager on two of our cruises. Other staff have come from every former Warsaw Pact and Yugoslav nation as well as Filipino, Brazilian, and more. I love the diversity!

This Ratschen is such nice custom. (This and also the Sternsinger on Epiphany) I wish I had seen this post before I posted my response on the Rhine Water Level board. It really aligns with what I was saying there. As we were talking about dialects elsewhere it is interesting the hear the differences between the the Lower Austrian in the video I shared and this Upper Austrian, but just wait until you go farther west into the Tyrol!

That's am impressively large group of Klapperer! Thanks for showing this. Crotalus is a new word for me. Maybe along the Danube if you got into a small town early when bells would usually ring for morning prayers you could run into this version of this Good Friday practice. The Ratschenbuam need to call the people to prayer, because the bells have been silenced only to fly to Rome and return on the third day full of Easter eggs and treats. This video illustrates the practice that I was familiar with.Traditionally it was just boys, like here, ergo "Ratschenbuam" not "madln" or "kinder". The boys show off their skills and also recite their call to prayer. "Wir ratschen, wir ratschen den Englischen Gruß, den jeder katholische Christ beten muss. Kniet's nieder, kniet's nieder, fallt's auf die Knie, bet's ein Vater Unser und drei Ave Marie". Funny that they say "Englischen Gruss" instead of "Engelsgruss", but that appears to be common. (not the same thing but reminds me of exclaiming Safra! or Zement! instead of Sacrament!)

My first wife spoke Northern Bavarian, but her mother and grandparents were refugees from Silesia near Breslau, her sister's husband is East Franconian from near Nürnberg. That Franke made little to no effort to speak standard German so there were times I could barely understand him. Germans can tell that I am an American who learned to speak German in East Bavaria. RDVIK

Every time I think about that cruise and not being able to sail into Budapest several things come to mind. I was glad to have more time in Bratislava, the Komárom docking situation was not good, everyone should to do pre and post extensions. The photo below is where we had to dock at Komárom. We were rafted as the fourth boat out from the river bank. The busses are lined up to take us and passengers of other boats to Budapest. There is no access to a nearby town from this location. Kudos to the staff on the cruise ships for keeping things organized and making sure everyone got on the correct bus. It was a little more than an hour drive to Budapest. After our tours in Budapest there was another hour plus back to Komárom. The following morning people who had no extensions were just bussed to the airport from Komárom. Those of us with extensions were bussed to our hotel in Budapest, so we had two more days in this beautiful city. I felt really bad for those who had no extension because they got very little time in Budapest. Even worse on our trip we could not even go to Castle Hill because traffic was restricted while Vladimir Putin was in town visiting his buddy Viktor Orbán. My advice is to always schedule extensions of at least two days on either end of your cruises. Otherwise you are likely to see little of the cities at the start and end of the cruise. RDVIK

I had the better part of the day in Bratislava on a Viking Cruise. We were only supposed to be there for the morning, but the water levels were low and we would not be able to get to Budapest. The boat stayed tied up in Bratislava for several extra hours while they made arrangements for us to go as far as Komarom and then be bussed to Budapest the next morning. We had gone with the package included walking tour and then I had several hours to wander on my own as my wife wanted to rest. I followed the coronation route, marked by brass plates in the cobblestone streets and alley ways. I went back to the castle and to St. Martins church where many of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Austrian empire had been crowned. I went out to St Elizabeths - "the Blue Church", stopped along the way at a some markers of historic events. It was Czechoslovak national day and a memorial event with music was taking place honoring their first president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Really enjoyed it and thought it was a really fun place to visit. Before we left the dock I got this photo where I was able to get the castle and the "UFO Bridge". You can see from the river bank how low the water was. RDVIK

I went to Lehigh University for two years in Bethlehem, PA. Also in Bethlehem is Moravian College. After my upcoming visit to Berlin I will be in Prague and then Domažlice (Taus in German) a town near the Bavarian border where, in 1431, the Hussites led by Hus's follower Jan Žižka were victorious over the Catholic forces in Fifth Hussite Crusade. In German it was the Schlacht bei Taus. There is a loose connection with that battle depicted in a, folk pageant Der Further Drachenstich, the oldest in Germany, held every year in Furth im Wald, just across the border. Kardinal Cesarini represented the Pope then and has a part in the play. Slav Epic - Das Slawische Epos - It is Mucha's monumental work - 20 very large panels depicting the mythology and history of the Czechs and other slavs. Currently a palace in Prague is being renovated to accommodate them. This a detail showing Queen Sophia in rapt attention of Magister Hus while her lady in waiting is totally disinterested. I think the Epic is currently on temporary display in Moravský Krumlov. RDVIK