notamermaid

On May 11, 1816, Byron and Polidori (the latter wrote a diary with dates and descriptions of places) passed the Drachenfels mountain but curiously did not actually visit it. They travelled upstream on the left bank of the Rhine so went from Bonn to Remagen and then Andernach. "The castled crag of Drachenfels" is in the third canto of the epic poem "Childe Harold" and I have quoted only the first verse. At Rhine kilometre 644.1 (left bank) you are supposed to have a great view of the Drachenfels. The Drachenfels is to the Lower Middle Rhine valley a bit what the Lorelei is to the Upper Middle Rhine valley. Heinrich Heine (yup, him of the Lorelei poem) went to the Drachenfels in 1820 and - what else - wrote a poem about it. notamermaid

Lady Caroline, herself not quite an innocent woman, called him "mad, bad and dangerous to know". John Polidori by the way started the genre of vampire stories during that meeting in Switzerland. notamermaid

Ouiii, happy surprise. I did not expect the Wall Street Journal of all publications to remember Byron on this day. And I fully admit that I had not thought of Byron had I not read an article in an online publication on Byron a couple of days ago. notamermaid

Although a baron, Byron is usually more referred to as Lord Byron, having been in the House of Lords. Ada Lovelace was his daughter and a brilliant mathematician. Wish I had the brain cells she had for that field of research. She is credited with being the first computer program writer. If you are interested look up the "Difference Engine" by the inventor Charles Babbage. Father and daughter sadly parted ways early in her life due to unhappy circumstances with society and her father's conduct. When Byron left Britain he travelled through Europe and ended up in Greece. There he took part in the Greek War of Independence. He died at the age of 36. Who knows what he may have achieved and written had he lived on. He was a husband, a father, a dandy, a writer, a revolutionist, invented mass tourism on the Rhine (only slight exaggeration) and posthumously saved a mountain from destruction. The other references: Mary Godwin, later Shelley, wrote Frankenstein after a leisurely evening together with Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Polidori in Switzerland, where they had gathered together. It was the "Year without Summer" and the mood was a bit down, with all that rain and the weird colours in the sky. Those were the inspiration for William Turner's paintings a year later, but that is another story. Byron and Polidori had travelled along the Rhine, as one did in those days as a gentleman, to get to Italy mainly. After Napoleon's defeat the Rhine valley was open for travel again and so regained interest. Yes, it was the Romantic period in literature and Byron described the Rhine valley in dramatic words. I will explain more about the clue of the mountain saved by a poem in another post, but here is said poem about said mountain, the Drachenfels, part of the Seven Mountains range: The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks that bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossom’d trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scatter’d cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine, Have strew’d a scene, which I should see With double joy wert thou with me. notamermaid

"The poem that saved a mountain" is the last clue which you do not need anymore really... You are right @Canal archive Lord Byron it is! The poet died 200 years ago today, far away from home in Greece. A few explanations to follow. notamermaid

It is a bit unusual even for April to jump so much in weather conditions. Still, the month is notorious for being unstable. "April, April, der macht was er will." is the saying, "April, April, it does want it wants to do". [at a whim] I put my winter jacket back on this morning and went shopping in driving rain. We have temperatures that are a little bit higher than in Bavaria right now, not a lot and the wind makes it feel really cold and unpleasant. notamermaid

Third clue: Ada the mathematician. notamermaid

Those projected images look amazing, albeit a strain on the senses potentially. You may actually find the Turner and Constable ones to be more approachable, i.e. you can get quite close, compared to the other paintings in the gallery. When I was in London - in winter, mind you - I found enough space at my Turner favourites to enjoy them. People crowd around Monet, etc. notamermaid

Second clue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein#/media/File:Frankenstein_1818_edition_title_page.jpg notamermaid

Another short quiz just for fun. Looking for a man and his anniversary. Related to the Rhine of course. Revealing the solution tomorrow afternoon or evening (my local time). Clue one: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords#/media/Datei:House_of_Lords_Chamber.png notamermaid

To the present day. We have had some rain so the level at Kaub is rising again. Going into next week we will likely see figures close to 300cm. A good level. With temperatures rising again and drier weather the level will return close to the long-term mean a few days after that. notamermaid

To the present day. With the change in weather we have had snow return even to Rhineland-Palatinate. In Bavaria snow is still falling above 500m altitude. The temperatures will rise again soon. The rain has made Pfelling gauge rise to 411cm. That is a good buffer for spring days without rain. notamermaid

Hmm, looking at the list of ports in the thread "Beyond the standard ports" I notice Neuwied again. They are still no further with their plans from what I have heard as there are legal hurdles I did not know about. Those have been explained to me recently by a local. The details had not made it into the newspapers. So back to the statistics. Autumn is the most likely time to have low water on the Rhine, but it can happen from July onwards. For commercial traffic low water is declared when the level on Kaub gauge reaches 150cm. You may see articles in business papers reporting on it. That has no impact on sailing for river cruise ships as regards draft, which means other than perhaps going a bit more slowly and carefully and having the odd difficulty at a low landing stage things will be fine. Kaub gauge goes down further basically every year, sometimes a lot. I do not want to go into details but just in case someone says to you "I went on a river cruise in 2018, it was awful" I would like to explain this most abysmal year for river cruising (whoever says to you "awful" is right). 2018 has been the worst year ever in river cruising and commercial traffic had an awful year, too. Apart from the curiosity factor (no consolation) the year was bad for locals, too. We had the driest and hottest weather for a long, long time and in that autumn Kaub got a new historical record for low water. River cruising came almost to a standstill. No ship of 110m(!) length made it through the Rhine Gorge for days and the 135m ships, well, I do not remember details, but they did not sail for some time. No chance. The river being so low the shallow section extended further than Mainz. This is the year at Kaub, the second half of 2018 the figures were in double digits only for a long time: Just to explain again, these figures are the gauge, a marker at the side of the river. To get the depth of the navigation channel, captains "translate" this into the real figures. The record was declared by the authorities on 22 October 2018 to be 25cm. notamermaid

That's right, just ignore advice! Seriously, most of the time things go well and the comfort of the ships and the delight of seeing the Rhine Gorge is worth the risk. An adventure that will most likely be an amazing trip without interruption, especially as you are going in July. I hardly ever spotted the Crystal ships on the river so I guess it will not look too weird to see the ex-Crystal Bach on my river with her slightly changed livery. Luxury in store for you in July. If anyone is interested in the takeover: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Uniworld-charter-two-former-Crystal-river-ships The stop in Karlsruhe is unusual on your itinerary, one of those places I called "beyond the standard": https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2516698-rhine-beyond-the-standard-ports/ notamermaid

Pontac, you posted several wines of differing origin that you had with your meals. Were they part of your drinks package or the standard fare? Were you happy with them either way? notamermaid