Rhine water levels 2022 and similar topics

[Canal archive]

I’ll back you up!

[notamermaid]

@Host Jazzbeau and @Canal archive, thank you. Much appreciated.

 

 

Kaub gauge down to 132cm. Should stay above 120cm. Rainy weather means that the level should rise again soon, probably already Friday evening.

 

Strong winds have made trees drop a lot of leaves but the colours are still nice. A real fascinating mix, even on single leaves themselves.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Yes it’s becoming a damp dismal autumn the birds are sat amongst the last beautifully coloured autumn leaves looking distinctly bedraggled and drippy.

[Second seating]

Last week here now it is raining leaves!

[notamermaid]

No news is good news as they say and this has been true for the river levels - hence no posts from me. I have also been a bit busy.

 

So first, river: Kaub is at 159cm. Rain on and off is keeping the river at good levels. It is a bit low for barges and fully expected in autumn, but plenty of water for river cruise ships. Dryer weather means that the level is predicted to fall, possibly below 120cm by the end of the month. Which is of course still fine for river cruise ships.

 

Second, I have read a bit at work about Christmas markets (not idly hanging around in the office, I do actually need such info as I work in tourism, not to worry) and so far have found no cancellations of note announced. All major markets in Rhineland-Palatinate appear to be going ahead as planned but there may be the odd light bulb and decoration missing... After two difficult years, few I would say are willing to put up with another Advent of loosing money and tourists. Mask-wearing is accepted more, evidently. Almost all the staff in my local supermarket is now wearing masks and I would add another two percentages on the figure of random people in the street wearing them.

 

It is a windy day today so the leaves are flying and trees getting more barren. But it is still colourful and pleasant to see the change from day to day.

 

notamermaid

 

[worldtraveller99]

But masks are not compulsory are they (except for public transport which we aren't aiming to use)?

[Canal archive]

 

Look what we got today!

[notamermaid]

6 hours ago, worldtraveller99 said:

But masks are not compulsory are they (except for public transport which we aren't aiming to use)?

No, except for public transport and health care settings.

 

@Canal archivelovely photo. I miss seeing English residential areas. We do not have much of that warm brick colour in the Middle Rhine valley. Had a double rainbow a few weeks ago, but I was among relatively tall buildings at the time so photos would not have captured it well.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[worldtraveller99]

Thank you. If you can upload a Christmas Market photo when they start that would be wonderful thank you! 

[notamermaid]

On 10/24/2022 at 11:42 PM, worldtraveller99 said:

Thank you. If you can upload a Christmas Market photo when they start that would be wonderful thank you! 

I will try and remember to post newspaper articles when they open.

 

The level at Kaub is predicted to go down to 120cm and possibly a bit below that, now around 1/2 November. The weather is dry and unusually warm. Splendid sunny late October days.

 

As mentioned in a previous post, I had a day out to a place I had not been to for a few years. I gave the clues of "seven" and "dragon". Solution coming soon.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

A day trip to Königswinter part 1

 

Week before last I went to the North of my county, Rhineland-Palatinate and then into North Rhine-Westphalia, to the foot of one of the mountains of the Seven Mountains range, the Drachenfels, or dragon's rock. The town is called Königswinter. I had not been there for a few years and wanted to check out a couple of shops,  a café/restaurant I had read about and first and foremost go to the Siebengebirgsmuseum to see an exhibition on early bathhouses and bathing in the Rhine but not to go up to the most splendid of regional tourist attractions that is the cog railway and the Drachenfels Castle (okay, you are allowed to call me weird).

 

Königswinter is on the right bank of the Rhine, a few kilometres before Bonn (district Beuel). The close proximity to the Bonn area makes it a popular place to live to commute to Bonn and has a tram line going North and over the river. In the past it has been a good place for a trip out for townspeople and profited much from Rhine Romanticism. Yup, it is that most famous and notorious of lords that put the hill on the tourism map. Read Byron's "Castl'd crag of Drachenfels". Königswinter at the foot of the rock developed into a wealthy place full of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) buildings and hotels. That splendour has faded in modern times as you can imagine but there is still enough old architecture from Baroque onwards to make it interesting.

 

The approach on the main road in autumn colours with the tramline on the left and the railway on the right was pleasant:

 

Unfortunately, it started raining, but we were able to take shelter under canopy of a farmer's food stall that had been set up in the car park we chose to go to:

 

Obviously, we could not resist looking at the produce and got radishes, onions, walnuts and a type of apple I had never heard of before called Wellant. Apparently it is a relatively new breed from the Netherlands and popular for the fact that it is tolerated well by allergy suffers.

 

We rushed through the rain and side streets, past a few interesting buildings. I enjoyed this house that reminded me of fairy tale stories (apart from the rubbish bin):

 

By the time we got to the main town area my paper printout of google maps with markings was almost soaked and we were ready for lunch so stopped at a street corner to find our way and the English café. But hang on, that place here looks interesting, has a French breakfast menu, we both agreed, and changed from English to French. Good decision!

 

To be continued...

 

notamermaid

 

 

[RDVIK2016]

7 hours ago, notamermaid said:

A day trip to Königswinter part 1

 

Week before last I went to the North of my county, Rhineland-Palatinate and then into North Rhine-Westphalia, to the foot of one of the mountains of the Seven Mountains range, the Drachenfels, or dragon's rock. The town is called Königswinter. I had not been there for a few years and wanted to check out a couple of shops,  a café/restaurant I had read about and first and foremost go to the Siebengebirgsmuseum to see an exhibition on early bathhouses and bathing in the Rhine but not to go up to the most splendid of regional tourist attractions that is the cog railway and the Drachenfels Castle (okay, you are allowed to call me weird).

 

Königswinter is on the right bank of the Rhine, a few kilometres before Bonn (district Beuel). The close proximity to the Bonn area makes it a popular place to live to commute to Bonn and has a tram line going North and over the river. In the past it has been a good place for a trip out for townspeople and profited much from Rhine Romanticism. Yup, it is that most famous and notorious of lords that put the hill on the tourism map. Read Byron's "Castl'd crag of Drachenfels". Königswinter at the foot of the rock developed into a wealthy place full of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) buildings and hotels. That splendour has faded in modern times as you can imagine but there is still enough old architecture from Baroque onwards to make it interesting.

 

That looks like such a great place to visit!  I like Art Nouveau. Our illustrator daughter introduced us to Alfons Mucha and we expanded our interest in other artists and architecture of Jugendstil from there.  I hope our cruise next spring takes us past that area in daylight!  Someday we will have to return to Königswinter for a visit.  Some of the art exhibits shown in that nice looking museum remind me of Hudson River and White Mountain school paintings.  And then there seems to be an opportunity to dive into the dragon theme connected with Fáfnir/Fafner from Wagner and Der Ring des Nibelungen. Is there any cave on the Drachenfels hill that legend holds to be Fáfnir's Höhle? My favorite dragon story is loosely connected with the 1431 Battle of Taus (Domažlice) from the Fifth Crusade against the Hussites. The people in that area on the other side of Germany have a "Drachenhöhle/Dragon's Cave" that is just a converted warehouse to display the huge robotic dragon that takes part in a yearly folk festival.  (photo attached with the dragon slayer Udo - not St. George or Sigurd/Siegfried)

[notamermaid]

14 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

Is there any cave on the Drachenfels hill that legend holds to be Fáfnir's Höhle?

There is the idea that it connects it to the Nibelungenlied - the saga from which Richard Wagner composed the operas - but it is not a proven connection and I have not heard of a natural cave up there.  There may be one. It appears the original legend was a dragon without name that tormented the people in the area, especially ships, and was defeated by a Christian maiden that was presented to it as an offering. Here is some quite good info: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/burg-drachenfels

 

What is called the Drachenhöhle these days is a building from the early 20th century, really unique. It is interesting and the Schloss Drachenburg (neo-Gothic) is really nice. You can explore it virtually: https://www.schloss-drachenburg.de/index.php/de/entdecken/virtuelle-schlosstour

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

The Rhine at Kaub continues to look good for sailing. The level is now at 157cm, the forecast has been adjusted and shows the lowest figure for 4 November. On that day the level is likely to get close to 120cm before rising again. All this makes the outlook for the first half of November pretty good. Not great water levels but well above what could cause problems for river cruise ships.

 

The brochures and online websites are full of Christmas markets and I have seen the brochure for the Christmas Garden in Koblenz. All looking promising for now.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

I am playing catch-up with the news and a bit belated can to my surprise and relief say that our panic health minister in Berlin has decided to drop the panic. Talking about covid and protecting yourself in winter is not to be done with fear but on an "educational basis". In Rhineland-Palatinate here a politician has even gone as far saying we should treat covid like any other illness, which I suppose is another way of saying it is like seasonal flu. It makes me hopeful that we will not see any specific measures to control the illness in the wider public. Well, we have the energy problems to deal with predominantly anyway. I have read that the first hotels are specifically adding an amount to the guests' bills to pay for rising energy prices.

 

I do wonder what river cruise companies will do? They have to pay more for diesel but also potentially for electricity supplied by the authorities on land, which they are obliged to use when docking.

 

Edit: forgot to mention that the river level is falling but there is no real change to the forecast. Kaub should not go below 120cm and is likely to rise again on Sunday.

 

notamermaid

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by notamermaid
added info

[worldtraveller99]

That is good news re Covid notamermaid. Not so good news re energy - we are already paying a surcharge at our cat's cattery for his stay soon!

[notamermaid]

On 10/27/2022 at 7:13 AM, RDVIK2016 said:

That looks like such a great place to visit!  I like Art Nouveau. Our illustrator daughter introduced us to Alfons Mucha and we expanded our interest in other artists and architecture of Jugendstil from there.  I hope our cruise next spring takes us past that area in daylight! 

The Siebengebirge, or rather the wider Lower Middle Rhine valley, is more often than not sailed at night.

 

Mucha is definitely one of the great artists of "flowing lines and curves" (my words). I have an Art Nouveau calendar in my living room and the October page showed an Alphonse Mucha poster from the United States (!). Jugendstil buildings abound in Germany, the nearest one from is only about 100m away. Usually they are not sticking out that much, but there are some real gems to be seen if you know where to look for them. This is the famous head in the old town in Koblenz:

https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/jugendstil-haus-olaf-d-hennig/27377761

Address is Firmungsstrasse 11. A regional newspaper tells me (online) that there is now a plaque in the pavement saying "Stop. Nach oben schauen." so that more people know about this architectural attraction. In the 20th century there was a (dispensing) chemist in the building. This is one of my favourite places in Koblenz, called Im Paradies (mural spanning over the street): https://www.flickr.com/photos/hen-magonza/26969633153/in/photostream/

 

Looking further afield, Brussels is considered a haven for Art Nouveau enthusiasts. There, Victor Horta was the great architect and you can visit a museum dedicated to his work. Would love to see those buildings.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

Short update. Kaub gauge is at 124cm. The forecast has been adjusted downwards and now shows figures below 120cm for tomorrow. But the most likely scenario is that the level will stay above 110cm and looking further into November we see the level staying low but at a level that can be expected in autumn. For the first half of the month the probability for the level at Kaub to stay above 100cm is very high. Good news, so time to return to Königswinter.

 

notamermaid

 

[Drinkpackageplease]

Long time lurkers, 1st time posters.  

 

If all goes well, we're going to be cruising the Rhine 11/18-11/25.  We keep obsessively checking the 14 day Kaub water level forecast to get a feel for the next few weeks.  It seems to look OK, however the drop at the end of the forecast is making us a little nervous.  Fingers crossed that the levels stay A-OK!   

[notamermaid]

57 minutes ago, Drinkpackageplease said:

If all goes well, we're going to be cruising the Rhine 11/18-11/25. 

Welcome to Cruisecritic! And thank you for joining the conversation.

 

The time frame should enable you to see many Christmas markets open. I hope you have a great time.

 

A bit of info on the graph you posted. It is the info that I use when I look further into the future than the regular forecast, just like I did in the post above. For those who do not know it, it is updated every morning and is a probability computer calculation (what the German name implies). Naturally the margin of error becomes greater with every day. Would the 18th of November make me nervous? Not yet. But then I do not need to travel potentially thousands of miles to get to the river cruise. 100cm is still a good-ish level and in the absence of heat the river does not loose volume as quickly as it would in August.

 

We could have a look again at that graph and see how it develops. Would you like to post the graph again, say on Sunday, for perspective?

 

notamermaid

 

[Drinkpackageplease]

Thanks - We're looking forward to our trip! 

 

Here's the latest graph.  Looks like the level increases about a week from now and then drops the following week. 

 

Hoping for the perfect scenario:  Some rain before the trip, then very little during the trip!  Either way, we'll be happy to be there.  

 

[notamermaid]

5 hours ago, Drinkpackageplease said:

Here's the latest graph. 

Thank you. Let us see. The margin of error for the 17th has decreased as we may expect. Overall there is not much change in the highest probability colour till then, so as I posted a few days ago in an assessment, the first half of November continues to look good. Now, looking further to the 20th of November, although attached with a high uncertainty yet as to what will be, we can nevertheless tell that the river is going to stay low and probably go down. The purple colour is still above 78cm but the margin of error is putting that figure into view and the probability of the level dropping below 100cm is relatively high. At Kaub, a level of 90cm is still okay, but it could lead to delays just because the navigation channel gets narrower and ships tend to slow down. If and how much your ship will be affected cannot be known.

 

Right now, Kaub gauge is at 125cm. With things looking pleasant still, I will leave the river levels aside for a few days, after my comments on the monthly graph, and return to my day at Königswinter.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[Drinkpackageplease]

Quick update:

 

My mom is from a small farming village in Spain.  We asked her to sing a traditional rain song for the Rhine.  Welp...it worked. 

 

She can stop singing now...

  

[notamermaid]

A Spanish rain song, never knew that existed but naturally it would in that climate! Thanks for the graph. Just need to get passed that low on 16 November and the rest of November should be pleasant and at ease.

 

Time to look back at October:

 

The month started on a relative high for autumn after long showers but lack of rain brought the level down quickly. Overall, the low levels we had feared did not happen though. Staying above 100cm the whole month made for pleasant sailing albeit not perfectly at ease. There was the slight risk of lower levels still in the back of our minds. Absence of rain brought the level down again at the beginning of November. But as posted above, there is a high probability of getting through the month with satisfactory to good levels.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Redbett]

Hi, my very first post here!

I’ve booked my first cruise ever for August next year on the Rhine. I’m cruising with Avalon from Amsterdam to Basel.

I came here to read about river levels for the same period this year as a little bit of a guide. Whatever transpires I’ll enjoy the journey no matter what. 
What is interesting is I haven’t read anybody’s posts on this thread mentioning Avalon, yet many travel with Viking. I’m solo so Viking wasn’t an option as the fare would have doubled…..so I went with Avalon for the discounted no supplement fare. I’d love to read travel stories about Avalon, my scant research found them to be great, have I been mislead? 
Oh I’m Australian so pulling out isn’t an option, it’s a long way from here to the northern hemisphere 🙃