The Boat

I am ending this blog where it should have began, with a post about the boat.

We were staying in the middle deck in room 229, in the back of the boat by the library.  

The beautiful sundeck.  Despite our late trip and cooler weather, we were able to spend some time up here.

One of the new experiences I had on the boat was going through a river lock.  This is a picture from our bedroom window of the boat sinking into darkness as the water levels were lowered, allowing our boat to pass down into the next section of the river.

A nuclear power plant that we passed.

Some of the industry the region is famous for.  Most of this we passed in the night.

Sunset spew.

Some Basics about the Rhein/Rhine

Our boat went from Basel in the South (the highest navigable river on the Rhine) to Amsterdam in the north, whereby we left the Rhein and traveled by canal to the largest port in Europe, Rotterdam and then the second largest port in Europe, Antwerp. Along the way we stopped at the following places, about which a post will be created in the future:


Basel
The Black Forest
Heidelberg (on the Neckar River)
Rhine Castles
Wine Tasting
Cologne
Arhnem
Amsterdam
Rotterdam (via canal)
Brugges (via bus)
Antwerp (via canal)


While currently under construction (in a big way), each of the above documented stops on the trip/blog posts can be accessed in reverse order as I write them by scrolling down or by clicking on the blog's archive to your right.


A map of the Rhine in Europe:





Two more detailed maps of the Rhine River:








The following are facts about the Rhein/Rhine:


-The spelling of the river Rhein/Rhine uses the same letters in English and German
-Readers are split on which spelling they consider more grammatically correct*
-Both spellings of Rhein (German) and Rhine (English) can be found in my dictionary
-The river flows north from its beginnings in the Swiss Alps and finishes in the Netherlands where it splits into five rivers or canals
-It has an average discharge of more than 2000 m3/s


*According to some data I made up




The best anecdote from the Wikipedia article is:


"Length:
Until 1932 the generally accepted length of the Rhine was 1,230 kilometres (764 miles), but in 1932 the German encyclopedia Knaurs Lexikon stated its length as 1,300 kilometres (810 miles), presumably through a typographical transposition error. This number was then copied the next year in the authoritative Brockhaus Enzyklopädie; apparently no one spotted the mistake, and the new number became generally accepted, finding its way into text books and official publications. Only in 2010 a researcher noticed the discrepancy. These findings have been confirmed by the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat, who determined the length to be 1,233 kilometres (766 miles)."


another fun one:


"In November 1986, fire broke out in a chemical factory near Basel, Switzerland. Chemicals soon made their way into the river and caused pollution problems. About 30 tons of chemicals were discharged into the river. Locals were told to stay indoors, as foul smells were present in the area. The pollutants included pesticides, mercury, and other highly poisonous agricultural chemicals."


and for those eager to have a slightly deeper cursory knowledge of the Rhein River there is the entire wikipedia article, which you could search for yourself, but I am going to show off my ability to do this and give you the entire link in this post:


Rhine Wikipedia Article


An even more entertaining site can be found here:


Rhine River Website

Strasbourg: Reconstructed Memories

The pictures from the trip reconstruct the memories of the journey for me (and you), more than anything else.  Not only do buildings, faces, and places, but entire towns and cities get lost in between folds of memory and absence of photographic evidence.  To avoid losing the small city into such an abyss of forgetfulness, I’m dedicating this post to Strasbourg.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera when we visited Strasbourg, but I was so taken by the city that this is probably for the best since otherwise I would have worn out the battery too early, and even now I can vividly recall its narrow avenues and gently flowing waterways.

To find out more about the history of Strasbourg I would encourage you to go to the wikipedia article.  The city has passed between France and Germany several times and has a festive and unique regional character that is not quite German or French.  Additionally there are many beautiful photos of the medieval city in the article.

The morning, as often was the case, was spent on an unmemorable walking tour of Strasbourg, which Mom and I ditched early to get some coffee and explore on our own.  Featuring more pink sandstone, a beautiful old town, a new government district containing several important EU buildings, and a large university, I had a great day exploring Strasbourg.  After getting coffee, Mom and I headed for a stroll along the canal that encircles the old town.  We then explored some of the historic university on our way to the botanical garden, which, of course, happened to be closed that day.  I’m not sure how gardens come to be closed, but I think it may have been for construction purposes.  Afterwards we headed back to the city center to have lunch and then retraced the steps of the tour we had missed, getting slightly lost, and finally finding what is called petite France.  It was a beautiful part of the city where two canals converge around an island populated by ancient-looking willows and dreamy medieval buildings, with their colorful shutters and flower boxed windows, filling the space with bucolic charm in the center of a modern city.  It was a pleasant moment we spent gazing upon petite France.

We were free to catch different busses departing from the city to our boat docked on the German side of the river, so I stayed into the afternoon, exploring a large park, part of the suburbs, and finishing my excursion with a walk along a canal for a ways.  Worn out from walking, I made it to the bus just as the first drops of rain were falling and remained on board for the duration of the day.


You can retrace my steps by looking at the tabs on the map below:


View Strasbourg in a larger map

Antwerp

Our final port of call was Antwerp, Europe's second largest port.


View Antwerp in a larger map

It was drizzling the entire time we were there, but I still set out for a few excursions to wander about the old town and gaze upon what our guide called one of the most beautiful train stations in the world.  I skipped the tour and explored on my own, and, despite the weather enjoyed the city.

We were docked in an overlooked and decaying part of town, with construction fences around abandoned projects, rotting buildings, and piles of rubble mixed in with dystopian high rises and corner bars.  All said, it was still an alright neighborhood and contained relics of Antwerp's port past/present/future in the last picture I was able to take with my then dead camera battery.  It is a series of identical warehouses from the early 20th century

Antwerp