Water level on European Rivers

[gracecarmo]

Last September (03), friends took a river boat tour from Amsterdam to Vienna. They said that most of the time they were bussed to ports along the Rhine.

We are going in June, so I wonder if the water will be low.

 

Grace

[shmabbies]

And we did Amsterdam to Budapest in September '02 and had high water! I don't think it's anything that can be predicted with any certainty when booking in advance. I'm guessing that maybe there is some centalized website giving river conditions or maybe on websites for some of the larger cities on your route they post this information?

[goeurope]

See the "Wasserstände" (water levels) page of the German Federal Institute of Hydrology at:

 

http://www.bafg.de/

 

The page on water levels is in German, but it's easy enough to figure out: Just select a location from the form and look at the graph.

 

A simpler daily listing of water levels is at:

 

http://www.infocentrum-binnenwateren.nl/index_ie.html

 

Both reports have a common shortcoming: They just tell you what the water level is in centimeters, which doesn't help much if you don't know what "normal" is. However, a thread on a rival message board gives the draft of two fairly typical river vessels (a Viking and a Uniworld ship) as 150 cm and 120 cm respectively, so you can use those measurements and the numbers in the charts to get an idea of whether the river is likely to be navigable. There's more information in the message thread at:

 

http://cruise-forums.com/forums/read.php?f=72&i=193&t=193

 

--

Durant Imboden

Europeforvisitors.com

[gracecarmo]

goeurope: thanks for the info, it is exactly what I am looking for.

Even if there is low water, we will still go on the trip, but will be prepared for what lies ahead.(ie the bus). Our river trip actually starts in Budapest and ends at the Black Sea.

We have land tours in Prague and Budapest.

 

Grace