AnhaltER1960
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Posts posted by AnhaltER1960
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Have you looked at a website like Marinetraffic to see if Viking ships are even moving on the Elbe?
They are. The Viking Astrild has been in Wittenberg on Sunday July 9th, completing her sailing downriver from Decin as scheduled. Right now she moves, as Marinetrafic shows, upriver somewhere between Torgau and Dresden, which should also be in line with the schedule. Havent checked the Beyla yet, but the usually have both ships moving, so the are in different locations, in case the are fixed by low water.
Rainfall in the last days (and there is more rainfall forecast) has lifted the water levels a bit. At least enough to allow sailing for the time being, but still hard to predict the weeks to come.
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It might be of interest to have a look at the charts of the water levels of the Elbe shown http://www.dessauwetter.de/dw/de_pegel_2013 here. The graphs show the water level of the last 4 weeks at the stations
* Schöna (CZ-DE border)
* Dresden
* Riesa
* Torgau
* Elster, which all are relevant for Viking Elegant Elbe cruises, plus
* Dessau
* Barby
* Magdeburg, which are downstream of the Viking tours, but might be relevant for other cruises.
It is clearly to see that, after a long period of drought the rainfall on June 24th had lifted the water table at Schöna an Dresden by approx 12 inches. Then, despite there was further rainfall in the area, the water table dropped again continiously (looks to me the Czech shut their gates at the Usti reservoir in order to refill it). On June 29th massive rainfalls made the river rise by 5 feet within 24 hours at Schöna. The wave is moving downriver and has reached Elster at the time of writing (please note the charts are showing the last 4 weeks, not a fixed date. The described changes of the water level cannot be seen from End of July onwards).
This means the next cruises to come should be safe to get afloat. But it also shows how quickly the situation can change, even by several feet within hours in a situation, where inches can make the difference between sailing and no sailing. So, even end of July is not predictable yet, even though there is more rainfall forecast in the days to come.
It also depends very much, where exactly the rain comes down. While the Elbe drains most of the Bohemian Basin in the Czech Republic, she drains only a small corridor of some 20 miles in Southern Saxony. Rainfall to the west of that is drained by the Mulde river (which eventually discharges into the Elbe, but only at Dessau, downstream of the Viking cruises and therefore not relevant for them), rainfall to the east discharges into the Spree, reaching the Elbe even further downstream.
Basic questions for Viking Rhine river cruise.
in River Cruising
Posted
Usually there are. Tours are planned in way, which allows for restroom breaks.
Be prepaired. Some are free (like in museums or sights you visit), others are not. Good advice by soxfan to keep 50 cent-coins for that matter.
Depends on the bus. If there are, keep in mind you need to be a bit flexible to access them and not too big. Forget about the "room" in restrooms in buses
Many did. Just browse the forum here.
Banking system in Switzerland is highly efficient. So you find plenty of banks and ATM to get some francs. There should be an opportunity at the airport.
The swiss take everything as long as they convert it into Swiss Francs. Credit cards are no problem and they will also accept EUR and maybe even USD cash, at a lousy rate however.
Noone will refuse them. Bring plenty of small notes.
Good idea (also on the ship), dependig on, which applicances you want to use. Keep in mind that some adaptors are fused and cannot be used with hairdryers or other equipment which draws many Amp. Also keep in mind, in Europe there is 220 V voltage, some pieces you have to convert from 110 V.
I do not know, when the organised transport starts, but I am sure they will tell you. Allow 2 hrs for the driving.