Safely through the gorge

We set sail in drizzly grey conditions after a wet night – I hadn’t realized it rained so much in Germany. Lots of traffic on the river as we spotted our first castle:

Then they came thick and fast (the castles, that is) but unfortunately the conditions were not ideal for photography, though Diana did her best! The problems were both bad light, and also the boat rocking and rolling in the wakes of the passing barges and cruise ships.

This one originally collected tolls from passing traffic:

The current gathered pace as we approached the Loreley, which is a kind of narrow S-bend in the river, where the water swirls and eddies in a ferocious and distinctly scary manner. Fortunately we only met one boat coming towards us, and did not have to deal with being overtaken or blue-boarded. Here’s the famous rock (looking back upstream):

After the adrenalin rush of the gorge, things eased off a bit, with plenty more castles as we approached Koblenz, and our turn-off onto the river Lahn, a Rhine tributary.

Here is the calm, bucolic Lahn:

We are now comfortably moored on the side of the river at Bad Ems – a spa town, and we are right opposite the enormous bath house.  After 400 kilometres of fair excitement on the Rhine, we plan to take it rather easier now and make our way gently up to Limberg.

Poised for the big test

For the second day we had a lashing thunderstorm just as we arrived at our port for the day: this time the Yacht Club at Rudesheim, which was very welcoming – and also has free WiFi, so you can expect more pix.

Our trip down from Oppenheim was uneventful, though there was plenty of traffic, especially through Mainz, where the river Main joins the Rhine, leading off to Frankfurt and the Danube canal, all the way to the Black Sea. Shortly after the junction we were brusquely overtaken by a large Serbian tanker from Belgrade. On the way through, we enjoyed this project – obviously a man who takes the concept of houseboat very literally:

There were pretty towns and villages along the river banks:

Here in Rudesheim, after lunch we walked a long way, and a long way back, to do some essential shopping for supplies. On the basis of that experience, we called a taxi to get us into town, and in particular to the museum of music machines: music boxes, pianolas, orchestrons: all sorts and many of them demonstrated.

Even mechanically played violins:

We then strolled about for a bit, before settling in the town hall square for a refreshing glass of the local Riesling. The pleasant girl at the kiosk kindly called us a taxi to get us back to the ship.

Tomorrow should be the climax of our Rhine trip: through the romantic Rhine gorge. Here is a map – though not the one I will be using for navigation purposes!

A diet of worms

This should be entitled welcome to Worms, and I would be able to trot out all my carefully prepared jokes on the subject. For example, we could discuss the dietary preferences of the Holy Rome Emperor Charles V, and how following a bout of indigestion in 1521, he issued an edict declaring Martin Luther a heretic, thus precipitating the Reformation.

But we aren’t at Worms: we set off this morning with high hopes and in pleasant weather, taking a last atmospheric look at Heidelberg.

The run back down to the Rhine was easy – the current seemed a little stronger, perhaps because of the thundery rain we had last night. We skirted the great city of Mannheim once again – the photo shows what at least some locals think about it:

Then it was down river to Worms, but unfortunately the mooring close to the centre was inaccessible, and we found ourselves in an industrial backwater at least 45 minutes’ walk from town. After lunch and some reflection – and research online – we realized that the RAF/USAF had visited the town before us, and there is really not a lot left to see. Perhaps just this tower, probably the main gate at the end of the original bridge over the Rhine.

So we headed on downstream, meeting many enormous barges, which set up most uncomfortable waves, finally arriving here at Oppenheim in a thunder storm. Oppenheim is next to Nierstein, of Niersteiner wine fame, and the hillsides are starting to be covered in vines.

By the way, people have commented positively on the photos, and I should clarify that Diana takes credit for all of them. Fortunately the memory card from her camera slots into my laptop, making the task of inserting them in the blog far from technologically challenging.

A philosophical post

We are online today thanks to the WiFi provided by the yacht club, so I will take advantage to upload a few more pix than usual.

We made an early start for our sightseeing, and got to the centre of the old city before the tourist hoards arrived. Rather curiously, a bicycle race was going on, which attracted a certain amount of attention, but was difficult to photograph. After coffee, we found, with some difficulty (language again!), the famous student jail. Riotous or drunken students would be sentenced to a few days here. They were let out for classes, but locked in overnight. They entertained themselves by decorating the walls. Here are some pix:

For some reason, fewer graffiti in the loo than elsewhere:

After a good German lunch, with very pleasant Riesling, we headed off over the old bridge, paying due homage to this gentleman, the Elector Karl Theodore, who built the bridge:

Then it was up the extremely steep path to the Philosophers’ Way: you would have to be philosophical after that climb. Or, at least, you would have plenty of time to think while you recovered. All the same, the views were spectacular – back across the river to the old town and the ruined castle looming above it. We had a pleasant conversation with an Irish couple while resting half way up.

Tomorrow we plan to go a bit further up river to see more sights, then turn round and return to the Rhine for the run down towards Koblenz (eventually).

Heidelberg

We are tied up on the river Neckar in Heidelberg at the end of a pretty easy day. First a couple of hours hurtling on down the Rhine to Mannheim. I forgot to mention the Blue Boarding game yesterday: I don’t know if this is unique to the Rhine, because it has such a strong current and is very winding. But the deal is, any boat coming up-river may, if it wishes, cross from its own side of the river, the right, to mine, the right going down, and require me to scoot across to his side. The reason would be to get into slightly easier current. The signal is simply a square blue board hung out on the right-hand side of the wheel house. A barge going down would hang out his blue board too to indicate he has accepted the message, and they pass right to right (starboard to starboard for the nautically inclined). This means that whenever you see a boat coming up, you have to study it closely through the binoculars and check if you are required to move over.  It sounds simple, and usually is, only just because one barge has blue boarded, it doesn't mean the next one will, and sometimes people forget to put out the board, or to take it in – then it’s just guesswork. It all adds to the excitement – and of course you have to be looking over your shoulder for overtaking barges too – they go much faster than we do.

Anyway, Mannheim was extremely industrial, on the banks of the river at least, and it was quite a relief to turn off onto the relative calm of the Neckar. We passed this ancient paddle steamer, now a museum, and bar.

Further up river people were in festive mood: parties on the banks and canoe races in the middle. Curiously most of the gentlemen holding the steering oars were wearing kilts.

They were having a party here at the Heidelberg yacht club when we arrived – lots of beer and messing about in inflatables. I resisted invitations to join in!

Germany calling..........

sorry for the non-PC joke: couldn't resist.

So here we are, definitively in Germany at last. Yesterday saw a few frustrations but was ultimately successful. We set off early from our overnight spot, reaching the Strasbourg basin in half an hour, Passing the European Parliament once again – this time with a suitable (?) pumpout lorry parked outside.

Anyway, we found find that the lock that refused to let us through the day before was now blocked by a railway swing bridge – for the next hour or so. Then the lock keeper came onto the VHF to say that a big passenger boat had to go through before us: one of these monsters (how the other half lives on the Rhine):

Once through, we bowled merrily down a very swollen Rhine, muddy and plenty of debris, but no mishaps. Engine at little more than tick-over and making about 15-17 kph over the ground. Through the first big lock, but at the second, and last, the lock-keeper wouldn’t let us through with a load of commercial barges, saying it was all too dangerous. Fortunately there was a pontoon where we tied up, and after a couple of hours chit chat on the radio finally persuaded him to let us through, to stay the night in a very nice little harbour just off the river below the lock. No WiFi however, so no updates, but we did manage to do a wash.

This morning we set off again, river very swollen, and current running fast, but plenty of traffic coming upstream – enormous barges and tankers thundering along. Their wakes can kick up quite a confused wave pattern in the river. By lunchtime we had covered some 65 kilometres in about four hours, so we stopped at Speyer, which is where we are now. Some problem sorting out the security in the port and how to pay, but managed eventually with some friendly local help: not speaking German is – not surprisingly, I suppose – a bit of a handicap in this country. But the natives are friendly and helpful.

We went sightseeing – the 11^th century Speyer cathedral is the largest Romanesque church in the world and is extremely impressive. It was also pleasantly cool inside. Here’s a pic

After that we found a Vodafone shop which sorted out our connectivity problems – at a price, of course. So we should be contact during the German part of our holiday.

Tomorrow we head further down the Rhine and then turn off up the Necker towards Heidelburg.

Not there yet

We bowled up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to the Strasbourg North lock that takes us back onto the Rhine this morning – only to be told over the radio that it was closed because the water in the river was too high. Bit of a bummer!

After some discussion, rather than return to our mooring of the past two days, we decided to take a leisurely excursion on the Marne au Rhin canal – in the company of lots of hire boats. We had a pleasant lunch on the tow path, then returned to a spot about three locks out of Strasbourg. Phone calls suggest that we should be able to get going properly tomorrow morning: apparently the water level is going down.

Lunch featured an excellent corn, carrot and apple salad with ham. Tonight its barbecued chicken legs with baked potatoes. And wine supplies are holding up!

No pix today.

Strenuous rest day

Another wet night, but we were snug enough with the hatches and windows closed. We set off in the rain with umbrellas (who said the most useless things on a boat were umbrellas and naval officers?) and found a run-down Coop supermarket for the heavy stuff – water, beer etc. – about a kilometer away.

After dragging that lot back, we set off to walk another kilometer and catch the tram into town, which deposited us near the cathedral:

For some reason it is closed over lunch time, so we took a little refreshment, then lunch, including the local speciality, Tarte Flambee, which was delicious.

After lunch we visited the cathedral, which was spectacular as ever – the stained glass quite amazing, and the astronomical clock mysterious and impressive:

Then we strolled over to La Petite France...

...in search of a decent butcher or cheese shop, but found neither. So back to the boat, and found a butcher by the tram stop where we had to change lines.

Now the sun has come out, so perhaps we’ll get some fine weather tomorrow: back onto the Rhine and heading North into Germany proper. We may have connectivity problems at first, so there could be an interruption to despatches from the front line.

At Euro headquarters

If we get much more weather like this I will be a convert to the warmist camp….it rained all night, was cool and cloudy with occasional showers all day. Glimpsed the sun for a few minutes after arriving here at Strasbourg, but then the rain drove us in from the aft deck – yet again.

The trip down was speedy, and the only commercial traffic was coming uphill, which meant most of the locks were set our way when we reached them. We will stay a couple of nights here in Strasbourg, and explore the city again. Also some shopping needed to replenish supplies: the whisky bottle is unaccountably empty!

A few more pix:

Engine check

Not many bridges across the Rhine 

And a map of today’s trip

Germany at last

At last we have reached Germany, and tied up at the Breisach yacht club, just across the river from France. Mulhouse proved quite fun, though it was hot and humid. After our barbecued chicken leg supper, we walked into town to observe a massive domino chain thing – two and a half kilometres supposedly, although we only saw the last bit in the pretty main square. It took 28 minutes to complete, but the last section, which was supposed to be set off by a tile falling from the church rood, missed, and had to be tipped by hand.

Dominos about to fall:

After that, back at the harbour, we were entertained by an extraordinary acrobat on a rope attached to a 100 foot crane over the canal. He did all kinds of amazing things, and then was joined by a female acrobat for more suggestive stuff, which climaxed with her pushing him into the water. All a bit strange, but plenty of people turned out to watch. Here they are in reheasal:

In the night, the weather broke with a big thunderstorm – lashing raise which tested the repairs to our forehatch, and fortunately there were no drips. In the morning it was cool and grey and we sailed at 8.30 with our French companions of the past two days. A couple of hours down to the Rhine, then north with a good current under the keel – fun to be travelling at 16 kph rather than chugging along at the usual 8 or 9.

Here’s a French tank, pointing East:

Here’s a little traffic – only 200 metres long or so!

Our French companions in the lock

Breisach

Made it to Mulhouse

Here we are in Mulhouse, which is most satisfactory. Now it’s on to the Rhine and into Germany. It was another hot day with plenty of locks – this time we went ahead of our French travelling companions. I’m not sure how much they liked that, but tough cookie. They went ahead yesterday. Lots and lots of cyclists on the towpath, many in garish lycra (more the men than the women).  One splendid family party consisted of two little girls following their mother and learning to roller blade, followed by an older girl and boy and father on unicycles.

Forgot earlier to post this pic of the unusual craft the canal company employs to try to reduce the weed infestation – they could do with a lot more, in my opinion.

Also a happy colour coordination

And a vintage muck spreader put to more odoriferous use.

Over the top

A long hot day to get over the top and down into Alsace. In all it has been about 185 kms and 72 locks to get up the hill – done in under a week on the water. Now its downhill all the way to Koblenz.  The first 15 locks only took two and a half hours, which was a relief. When we were here last, it was a question of two hunky young men on scooters dashing from lock to lock and winding gates and sluices by hand: now it’s pretty girls on bicycles pressing buttons.

Here’s a picture of a canal bridge, just outside Montbeliard.

Here’s one of Nick chatting to one of the pretty girl students doing summer jobs as éclusières.

And here’s a sight of the lock staircase, as best we could manage.

We are now settled in the port at Dannemarie, enjoying a refreshing beer, and  should make it to Mulhouse tomorrow – another long and not very interesting day as I recall. Then it’s onto the Rhine on Sunday.

Us again

Pleased to have managed to post a photo and map yesterday, so here’s another today – Saskia in somewhat scruffy cruising mode – taking the sun at Isle sur Doubs. The important item to note is on the roof at the back – the barbecue is brilliant on these cruises. For those who don’t know Saskia, although she looks modest – and is, indeed - she is quite comfortably fitted out. The divan in the main cabin folds out into a full size double bed, there is a hot shower, fridge with freezer – ice for the evening whisky – a washing machine, cooker and oven etc.  We have 240 volts power, either when plugged in at a port, or though the inverter from the batteries.  Unfortunately the air conditioning isn’t working, and the yard has failed to find out why. But the heating is, and was used earlier. For the technically minded, we have a 75HP Volkswagen marine diesel engine, which drinks about three litres an hour at normal cruising speed – 8kph is the speed limit on the canals. The tank is about 160 litres, giving us a fair range.

 Here is the captain relaxing after lunch......................

We are now tied up in the port of Montbeliard, best known, I understand, for an obscure Lutheran scholar and the fact that Peugeot makes most of its cars here. Various other boats we saw during the day are here too – including a jolly German couple in a Sadler 34 who come from Heidelberg, and promise to show us the town when we get there.  A fat German who keeps his boat at Cochem on the Mosel tells me we will have no trouble on the Rhine – famous last words!

People ask about the costs of this sort of travel: you pay at commercial or municipal ports, but it varies. Last night at Isle sur Doubs came to 8.70 euro, tonight it is 16.60. For that you get to tie up, plug in and fill your water tank. Sometimes there’s WiFi, but not here. You can also simply stop on the side of the canal, drive in a stake and spend the night completely free: it can be very pleasant.

We are now off the River Doubs, which is something of a relief, and it has been canal all day – some parts a bit weedy, but others reasonably clear. Tomorrow we head for the summit, and then down an amazing staircase of some 15 locks in five kilometres into Alsace.

Summer definitely arrived in the Jura

Thanks to all who commented on the facebook post – evidently it worked. Not something I’m used to. This seems a bit easier and won’t clutter up anyone’s newsfeed with unwanted stuff.

On specific comments – yes Claudia, we will try to do pix, but we are using a 3G dongle for wifi connection, paying by the amount of data up or downloaded, so it may have to wait until we find a free wifi. I will also try to put up a map today.

Good comments from Roger – we have seen lots of cyclists along the way, and being Tour de France time, many, shall we say more mature, gentlemen are recovering their youth in brightly coloured lycra. Your comments on the Rhine are certainly apposite. We have done the upper part, south of Strasbourg, a couple of times, once with a very strong current: extremely slow upstream, and an adrenaline rush downstream. I think the Rhine gorge could be a bit like that. Certainly when one gets out onto the Rhine, we feel very small – the locks, the barges, the current and everything. Should be fun.

Today was an easy trip up to L’Isle sur le Doubs, to give it its full name, in bright sunshine. One lock played up and we had to wait an hour for a somewhat louche young eclusier to appear and fix it. Nowhere to tie up, so lunch on the move.

Here's the map

And here;s the captain holding a rope:

Onward and upward

We sailed at about 8.30, in sunshine finally, with the washing drying on the rails. To our surprise there was another boat at the first lock – yesterday we saw none at all. It was a small German craft, but small or not it scooted along rapidly in the river – faster than us, which meant they prepared all the locks for our stately arrival.

We reached Baume les Dames at lunchtime and found a convenient mooring, just beside the bar, managing to dock reasonably neatly in front of the critical lunching audience. The plan had been to continue to Clerval for the night, but we had heard rumours of problems there and a phone call revealed that the port is closed. It is too far to get to Isle sur Doubs in the afternoon, so we decided to stay, and made a foray with the Shirley shopping trolley to a nearby SuperU supermarket.

On the road again...

…in a manner of speaking: we left Dole in a hurry and rather unexpectedly on Sunday morning, even though we had paid for the berth for Sunday night. Fairly early there started to be rumours that the floodgates had opened, and a great deal of telephoning – French offices do not function at the weekend – confirmed the news. So off we set, preferring to take our chances on the river than settle down to do the washing.

The trip was not uneventful: the canal cuts are full of weeds, which block the fresh water intake to the engine, so that the strainer has to be cleared very regularly. The river was definitely still in spate: the current extremely strong, cutting our speed to walking pace or less at times. And there were some vicious rain storms, one of which cut visibility to about 50 metres.

However, we made it to a useful mooring at Thoraise, just before a tunnel, and had a peaceful night. We had expected to share the pontoon with a pleasant Dutch couple who had been our neighbours in Dole, but they too got delayed by weed problems and didn’t make it. This morning we set off early, reaching Besançon by lunchtime, heading through the tunnel there too, rather than taking the scenic route around town, and after more laboured struggles against the current, found a quiet Port de Plaisance at Deluz, which is where we now are – with the washing machine doing its stuff, and the sun finally shining. For the past few nights we have been running the central heating in the evening, but not tonight, I think.

It is good to be on our way again, and despite the various delays, we are really only a couple of days behind schedule – which anyway had quite a lot of slack built in. I don’t think there will be any problem getting to Germany in good time.

Stuck in Dole

I realise that it is very hard not to start a post with Well.... or So.... but I will do my best to resist the temptation. Anyway, apologies for the silence: mainly resulting from my having left the laptop charger at home.

We finally set sail on Thursday afternoon after a frustrating couple of days in St Jean getting last minute things fixed - including an annoying leak around the forehatch which dripped on our faces in bed most of the night! We got back into the rhythm of going through the locks fairly rapidly, and reached Dole just before navigation closed for the night, finding a pleasant berth with electricity and water. However, the bad news was that further up the Canal, where it goes into the River Doubs, in a couple of places the water is high and they have closed the floodgates. Which means we are stuck here at least for today, and perhaps longer. So we took advantage to explore the town, which is charming, and also boasts a good computer shop, where we managed to buy a new charger. So it could be worse. Also the Orange Domino dongle that we have to convert 3G signals to Wifi is working well, which means that we have excellent connectivity.

Despite the delay, assuming we get going again in a day or two, and that there are no further extreme meteorological interventions, we are confident that we will meet up with our friends in Germany as planned.