Worms and Wine

It was our intention to go all the way up the lovely River Neckar but fate intervened and so it was on a showery day that we headed up the river and through the industrial wasteland of Heilbronn and into the Middle Neckar, where for the first time, the valley spread out and the vineyards crowded the banks of the river. We stopped at km125 out of some 200 navigable kilometres, where we had a lovely view of the wine valley.

The forecast was not looking too good and rather than push on through pleasant but not spectacular scenery in the wet we opted to return downstream more or less stopping at the the places we had found on the way up as there are few places capable of taking a boat our size. There were castles we hadn’t noticed on the way up with the every present trip boat passing by.

The weather began to improve for a few days and we stopped again at Zwingenberg where we went for a long walk in the afternoon and looked down on the castle from up high.

We passed the famous Hornberg a castle (now a castle hotel)

and lovely stretches of what we think is probably the most scenic navigable river in Europe. And all the while we saw perhaps 5 touring boats (ie boats that were not based on the Neckar). That was an average of one boat very 2 days.

It is probably because of the difficult of getting to the Neckar being as it is half way down a turbulent flowing River Rhine and with lots of red tape preventing most Germans in their boats going on the Rhine (but not foreign nationals!).

And so to Heidelberg where we tied up in the middle of the city and in the afternoon walked the famous Philosopher’s Way which climbs up the side of the valley between narrow steep rock walls to a high point with magnificent views over Heidelberg.

It is called the Philosopher’s Way because of the many famous philosophers and scientists  who would ramble along it discussing matters of import between themselves and admiring the lovely views.

It is a tiring walk as it is very steep in places and we enjoyed a cold beer on the deck watching the evening boats travelling up and down the river. The next day was quite rainy so we stayed in port and watched the River change from a gentle flowing one to a fast flowing torrent. Luckily it subsided overnight and we left the next morning down the river and on to the Rhine where we stopped in the Motor Boat Club of Worms for the night. Worms is the oldest town in Germany and does indeed have a most beautiful cathedral but 99.9% of everything else is post war and in general shabby apartment buildings. Quite a let down compared to Heidelberg. But it was a very hot day (31c) with the rest of the coming week forecast as very hot up to 33c.

This week we continue down the Rhine and then turn up the River Main to Frankfurt where David’s son Sam is joining us for a couple of weeks on the 400 km trip up to Bamberg.

Currents and Castles

Well Monday was wet and damp and so we stayed in Strasbourg. We wandered around in the rain trying to find a newsagent that sold the Sunday Times but to no avail. So we stopped at a little restaurant and had a lovely lunch of Vegetarian Lasagne and Tarte Flambee washed down with some lovely Cotes du Rhone. Somehow that helped make the rain outside seem less important, and so we headed to a big Hypermarket and stocked up with the last French food we would have for a long while. We returned to a beautiful aroma in the boat as Wendy had made a slow cooker meal in the morning and it was simmering away all day while we were out.

Next morning the rain had gone and we left for the Ecluse Nord that leads out into the River Rhine.  As soon as we hit the main current our speed increased by 5 km/h and we roared down the Rhine at 16 km/h. The Rhine at this point is canalised and the current quite tame compared with further down the Rhine.  We had two big locks to get through which took a while, and then we were let out into the wild Rhine. The current increased to 10 km/h and we were hurled down the river at over 20 km/h whilst the engine was on Slow ahead. The current in this part of the river is controlled by underwater ‘groynes’ or stone piers that jut out into the river sometimes for up to 80 metres. You can’t see them and they are sort of marked in places by buoys. You have to follow the charts carefully and keep to the middle when you can.

Unfortunately that is not always possible because of something called ‘blue flagging’. The current is always weaker on the inside of  bend ,and boats beating up river like to head on the inside of bends to make better progress. Sometimes that means going on the ‘wrong side’ and to indicate this they put  up a blue board which basically means pass me starboard to starboard rather than port to port. At one point in the trip we had two ships coming up river, one of which was  blue flagging, one ship overtaking us and a police boat. All the boats were  within 50 metres of us in a narrow part of the river on a blind bend. We were glad when that was over.  We stopped for the night in small haven off the river and by lunchtime the next day we pulled out of the Rhine and into the River Neckar. The current was negligible up the Neckar as it has weirs across it every 10 km or so.

We continued up to the first main town on the Neckar called Heidelberg famous for it castle and  old University.

It is full of medieval buildings and is very charming (and touristy). We had the best seat in town on the River where all the action was taking place with end of term student parties on the banks of the River, rowing boats up and down, sailing boats everywhere, trip boats and barges and US. And it only costs 15 euros a night.  I can only imagine what the hotels must be charging. Next day we wandered around the town, past the famous Zum Ritter hotel that dates back hundred and hundreds of years and paused for a while in the main square for a beer.

In the evening we went to a local beer garden. The weather was holding out, and though partially cloudy we have not had any rain since we left Strasbourg. The next day we headed up the river and stopped at a lovely walled village called Hirschhorn. We climbed up to the Schloss on top of the hill which is  now a hotel. There is a lovely view from there along the Neckar valley.

  The Neckar in this part flows through steep wooded valleys with castles perched on every second hill.  The evening was warm and we spend it on deck watching the people watching us.

We would have liked to have stayed longer but the river was calling and so next day we headed further up river passing more castles along the sides.

We stopped for the night at Zwingenberg where the Margrave of Baden (who or what  ever he is) lives in a lovely castle on the hill overlooking our mooring.

Then today, Sunday we continued up the river, whose character was slowly changing to lower hills until we emerged out of the Odenwald (which is the name for the forested hills around the Neckar) into the plains around a city called Heilbronn.

There wine is grown in terraces along the hillsides. We were stopped by the Wasserschutzpolitzie and asked for our papers and all was in order and we then moored for the night at Bad Wimpfen. It is an exquisite 1000 year old walled mediaeval town.

We biked up there and wandered around amazed at how well preserved it was.

This week we continue up the Neckar towards Stuttgart and then we head back again to Heidelberg.

Nancy to Strasbourg

The distance between Nancy and Strasbourg by canal is 175 km. Alsace is separated from Lorraine by the Vosges Mountains and somehow a canal has to get through that barrier. It does it by fantastic feats of engineering as we discovered. 

Nancy is a lovely city with perhaps its crowning glory being its main square the Place Stanilas. With Gold plated wrought iron and lovely buildings, it glints in the early morning sun.

The Canal Marne au Rhine connects the two cities and meanders, once out of Nancy, through rolling hills and pleasant countryside.There are many locks (around 80) and that did my shoulder no good at all even though Wendy tried to take on more of the load.

We made slow and steady progress from Nancy and for the first time we encountered fleets of hire boats which steadily grew in number until they comprised over 90% of all the boats on the canal. The locks are automated with the ‘garage door opener’ and except for a lock which had gone AWOL and held us up for a while it was easy cruising.

Two days sailing from Nancy the canal reaches the summit pound. To get up to it we needed to go up the highest lock in France at 15.4m

With floating bollards it is easier than smaller locks as you don’t need to tie up and then keep undoing and retying as you move up.

You go in through a tiny sliding door at the bottom into a huge cavern. At the top we were on a 30km summit pound and we pushed on until we hit the bottom of the Vosges. There we dived underground through two huge tunnels and emerged halfway up a mountain in Alsace. The canal is carved out of solid rock and is high above the valley of the Zorn. At the end of the canal everything stops. There before you is a huge inclined plane. You just drive in

and ten minutes later you are almost 50m lower in the Zorn valley. The steep sides of the valley are heavily wooded and it is very quiet and remote until you get to the village of Lutzelbourg where we spent a couple of nights.

We dined out on Alsace Specialities like Blue Trout and Wild Boar pate at the Hotel des Vosges and rested after the locks we had been through.

Then we continued and emerged out of the wooded valley into the plain of Alsace and headed towards Saverne.

There were lots of hire boats now, most of which were hosting Germans. And most of the boats had large numbers of men only German crew, whose chief pleasure in life was drinking beer from morning to night. As we went through the lock in Saverne with such a party they turned up their cd player and all ten of them started singing Deutschland Uber Alles at the top of their voices, and then as if realising where they were, switched to the Marseillaise as they left the lock. Still they didn’t make too much noise at the Port where we all stayed, contenting themselves with playing boules all night. We had a lovely mooring in Saverne right opposite the magnificent Chateau des Rohans. We found a good large supermarket and did a big shop. There were two other NZ boats in Saverne. We travel the length of Europe by boat, and hardly ever see a NZ boat and then we hit 2 others all in one place.

The tow path besides the canal is a favourite with cyclists (again 90% German Speaking judging by our sampling of conversations. You can cycle on paved paths from Strasbourg to the Arzviller Inclined Plane stopping at lovely hotels along the way. I guess its about 90km, so about two days up and two days back. Very very popular!

We had two broken down locks between Saverne and Strasbourg which held us up as the ‘mobile lock keepers’ had to drive to us and sort out the problem. Whilst waiting I stripped down the throttle control which had been sticking and refusing to go into neutral, found the problem, and that was another problem crossed of the list.

We arrived in Strasbourg at lunchtime and took the last place at the Strasbourg Port du Plaisance. After a bite to eat we walked into the old town and saw the quite magnificent cathedral.

The facade has to be seen to be believed and it is easily the best cathedral we have seen to date.  It is so big that with our camera it was impossible to photograph the whole front.  We wandered around the quaint streets with houses 800 years old, and arrived at the area called Petite France which has some of the oldest buildings in France. Strasbourg is traversed by many canals and branches of the River Ill and tour boats abound everywhere.

After a week of virtually perfect weather, the late afternoon produced light rain and as we finish this blog, we have to decide whether to head down the Rhine tomorrow or leave it for another day.  The Rhine in this area is a monster which has a current of 10km/hr, and huge traffic day and night. Visibility is important and quite frankly it is the the part of the trip which has us a bit anxious. Two days sailing downstream will bring us the the entrance to the tributary of the River Rhine called the River Neckar. We must turn here in the fierce current and then head up 200km of much quieter and very beautiful scenery past castles and vineyards until we get to (or close to) Stuttgart. But the story of that must wait another day. For now we have travelled 1000km since we left, used 550 litres of diesel (1 euro a litre) passed through 170 locks, 5 tunnels and an inclined plane and stand poised to inch out onto the River Rhine and be hurtled like a roller coaster down a turbulent torrent. Let us see what tomorrow brings …

Battlefields and Quiches

It was a public holiday on Monday but luckily most tourist sites were open. We were in Verdun, the main city on this part of the Meuse and at the heart of the terrible events of 1916 when 300,000 men died in the area and hundreds of thousands more were wounded or went missing.

Our first visit was to Verdun Citadel, a giant underground maze of tunnels about 10 mins walk from the boat which was centrally placed on the main quay in Verdun near all the action.

When we got to the Citadel and bought our tickets we discovered that the ambient temperature was only 7C. We were dressed in tee-shirts and shorts so we decided to go back to the boat and dress more warmly and returned after lunch when we  were the only people there. You catch an electric train type thing like the ones which would carry you around the Ghost House at a fairground. It was an excellent tour for the two of us, in English, with holographic images, great narrative and we just sat back and enjoyed being transported around the tunnels in the pitch black, and from time to time stopping to be presented with a film or sound track explaining some aspect of the Citadel like the memorial to the dead of Verdun.

Afterwards we walked back home via the moat that surrounds the Citadel (now empty) and visited the Memorial and Crypt where the names of the dead and missing in the Battle of Verdun are kept. It has amazing presence and a sombre approach along the Avenue de Victoire with fountains going along the middle of the road.

In the evening we got out the Cobb BBQ and roasted a chicken and sat watching the crowds wandering up and down the quay on the warm and sunny evening.  The weather has been fantastic all week (until now) with temps in the high 20s and brilliant sunshine all day.

On Tuesday we had an easy morning doing some odd jobs on the boat and in the afternoon took a bus trip up to Fort Douamont and the main battlefield site. Fort Douamont was the greatest fort ever built in France but the days of fixed engagements were over soon after it was built and the French all but abandoned it allowing the Germans to take it without a struggle. It then took the French 300 brutal days to recapture it and both sides 150,000 men dead or missing. It is built on the top of the highest point of the Meuse Valley and in reality is a series of tunnels dug into the hillside.

They were damp, cold, dark and would have been hell on earth for the men serving there as millions of shells were flung at it by both sides. The tour was in French which our linguistic skills couldn’t keep up with, so armed with an English brochure we wandered around seeing the kitchens, toilets and dormitories where thousands of men lived and died.

Then it was onto the Ossuary of Douamont where most of the dead are buried from both sides. In the Ossuary are kept piles of bones as no-one knows who they are French or German, only where they were found. It is a chilling sight. Outside are the endless graves of those who could be identified.

That evening again in the hot evening air, we dined out at a restaurant 50m from the boat and for less than 20 Euros each had a great 3 course meal.

The next day it was time to move on and we cruised 40km up the valley to the town of St Mihiel where another great battle of the Verdun war was fought, this time mainly by the Americans who finally rescued the town in 1918. We saw another beautiful Abbey Cathedral and on the way back bought some stunning apricots and white asparagus. Expensive but about the best we had ever tasted (other than the lovely asparagus we had had in Baiersdorf last year). France is like that. Food built to a quality rather than a price!

For the past few days we had been on manual locks worked by attractive French University students, but from now on we were back on automatic locks where our ‘telecommanders’ worked the locks. It was our last day on the Meuse. We had travelled on it for over 16 days and over 450km with 70 odd locks. We turned out from it onto the Canal Marne au Rhin, and headed through a long tunnel and down 12 locks in 12 km to the town of Toul in the heart of Lorraine famous for its quiches. It has the most beautiful cathedral of St Etienne.

I had noticed that the barometer was going down all the time even though the weather was still lovely and eventually twigged that we had been climbing all the time away from sea level and were now 230m high. I recalibrated the barometer and that bought things back in kilter. Saturday was a drizzly day so we decided to stay on our berth and took things easy with some emails, reading and baking muffins. The weather improved the next day, though still not up to the standard of the last week, and so we set sail this time on another major river – The River Moselle – downstream to Nancy, the capital of Lorraine. We had arranged to go through the first lock with a Dutchman and we were running late. He asked us to go in first and so we did but unfortunately forgot to take the radar arch down and then we heard it – zouchhhh.  The satellite dish cover was torn and the arch was thrown down.  We were quite despondent. It was raining by now so we quickly covered the dish and carried on to Nancy through rain and 8 locks.  When we got to the port I undid the dish cover and tried the TV and got a signal. Whewww!  It was just a smashed cover. We patched up the cover with duct tape and covered it with plastic and all works fine now. We will get another cover when we get to Germany as they are made there. We won’t make that mistake again!

We had finally crossed from the Valley of the Meuse to the Valley of the Moselle through 70 locks and  4 tunnels.

Next week we explore Nancy and head East to Alsace and Strasbourg and our date with the mighty Rhine.