The Romans brought the art of the vigneron to what are now Germany and France. In cooler climates they favoured the hillsides along the banks of the large rivers. The steep slopes allowed for maximum sunlight, and the rivers provided water for the grapes in dry times. But you had to be fit and agile…
Cochem is a lovely little town in Germany’s Moselle country. There has been a town here since before the Romans came. As it happens, most of the old buildings in the town centre were destroyed during various wars – the most recent being WW2. That was because of the bridge which was used to send…
I think I’ve found a favourite European city. Koblenz is just plain lovely. Pete and I had a great time simply wandering around, soaking up the ambience. There are large buildings (churches, palaces, government offices), but wide pavements and beautiful public gardens. The city lies at the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine. At…
Duisburg is in the middle of the Ruhr industrial area, basically levelled in WW2. The glory days as the industrial center of Germany are gone. Only one of the coal mines is still operational, scheduled to close in 2018. These days steel is made in “third world” countries like China and India. Duisburg is a…
Maastricht is on the River Maas (or Meuse if you prefer the French version), which forms a part of the Rhine delta. The city claims to be the oldest town in the Netherlands (haha – see the post about Nijmegen). But really, all these towns along the rivers have had occupants for thousands of years….
Nijmegen claims to be the oldest city in the Netherlands – but they’re not the only ones to claim that title. Whatever. It’s in Gelderland, one part of the Netherlands that’s actually above sea level. And it has several bridges over the Rhine river. Of the tour options, I decided to go to the battlefields…
Veere is a gorgeous little village on one of the islands of Zeeland, close to the Belgian border. Very, very picturesque, with lovely gardens and cute lanes lined with neat houses. In the afternoon we were taken to see the Delta Works, the huge storm surge barriers built to protect Zeeland from North Sea flooding….
We sailed out of Amsterdam in the early evening, heading for the Amsterdam Rhine canal, and from there to Antwerp on the River Scheldt. It’s a boring run for the most part, passing green fields, man-made rock walls and hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines. But pretty soon the green fields were replaced with industrial…
We joined Scenic’s Scenic Jade at Amsterdam along with one hundred and nineteen other passengers for a fifteen day cruise on the Rhine and the Moselle, back to the Rhine and up to Basel in Switzerland. It’s seven hundred and forty-two kilometres as the crow flies, but the rivers wind around a bit. Most of…
We’re back in Amsterdam recovering from jet lag before we catch a riverboat tomorrow for a cruise up the Rhine to Switzerland. It’s amazing, really. We’ve flown 16,200km to take a journey that’s less than 750km by car. But the river meanders, we take side trips and we stop a lot. Long distance travel isn’t…