Blue stuff...

Right men... This is how it works... I'm pretty sure most of the info and facts are right, but I wouldn't bet your last paycheck on it.

There's a ship on the Rhine River called "MS Amachello". This is an Aria class vessel and carries a maximum of 150 people.

There's another vessel on the Rhone River called the "MS Amadagio". Also an Aria class ship. They refer to them as sister ships but they're not really. The Amadagio is quite a bit older than the Amachello with some slightly different design features. Something you really notice as a passenger when you go from one to the other.

Now, all this info refers to the Amadagio 'cause the Captain of the Amachello was a bit of a loner and not very approachable. Which is fine, as long as he keeps the ship afloat when I'm on it I'm not complaining.

Captain Chalk of the Amachello, and Captain Cheese of the Amadagio.

Anyway... The Amadagio...

Length: 210 metres. The Captains' Certificates allow them to operate vessels up to a maximum of 220 metres. To operate on a German River you must speak German, and to operate on a French River you must speak French. (Makes perfect sense to me!). The road rules are very different on both Rivers, and a lot of that is to do with the average widths of the rivers and the volumes of traffic. Way, way more on the Rhine.

Main Power: 2 x Cummins Diesels, each develops 1150 horsepower. They use on average, 1400 litres of fuel per trip. Obviously more going upstream and less going down.

Average Speed upstream is 11 kph and downstream is 18 kph. Apparently you don't use knots as a speed reference on inland waterways. Top cruising speed is 22kph. If anyone knows what the top speed is they're not telling - 'cause if you know it means you've broken the law.

Drive Train: 360 degree Stern Drives with fixed props. These Stern Drives are computer controlled to stay in sync, and the ship can be steered using a single joystick, or each Stern Drive can be manipulated independently. Sorry to you boaties if I'm using the wrong terminology, but hopefully you know the bits I'm talkin' about.

There's a six cylinder Cummins Diesel in the bow, powering a single, reversible tunnel prop that acts as the bow thruster. When they crank it up you've got to make sure you've got a firm hold on your drink.

There are two other Cummins Generator units, one is used for the ship and the other is for the hotel, and then there is one other Cummins Generator unit that's classed as "emergency".

Each vessel's displacement is a little over 1500 tonne, the majority of which is ballast, all of which is fuel. The vessels carry enough fuel to perform their normal operations for a little under a month.

So, the wheelhouse...

Check this out...

The Amachello on the top and the Amadagio on the bottom. Spot the difference?

No wheelhouse and no radar mast visible on the Amadagio. They lower these as necessary to get under bridges. So now, here comes the good bit...

By the way, these photos coming up were taken with me sitting in a deck chair. I wasn't allowed to stand on the deck 'cause I would've bumped my head on the bridge. You'll see why in a tick...

Here's the Amadagio approaching a low bridge - which is not really a low bridge. The problem's high water. Anyway...

Here we are passing under the bridge...

This is looking backward towards the guy steering the ship...

And here we come out from under the bridge... That guy you can see is the Second Officer standing in the wheelhouse with his head out the top hatch.

And this is how they make the top deck fit under...

Deck chairs, handrails and canopies all collapsed flat.

The ship's speed going under this bridge was just a tad under 18 kph. I asked the Captain how they knew how much clearance they had and the answer I got... "We just know!"

So, here's the inside of the wheelhouse...

Straight in front, just off the floor: redundant radar systems with an electronic chart plotter in the middle. The flat screens are for real time performance information. The little wheels on each side are for individual steering control and in the centre of each wheel is a throttle lever for each engine. The joystick that pulls it all together is just behind the RHS steering wheel. You can see it in this next picture.

Pretty cool... Huh?

So, high water, flooding - sorta, debris in the water, and look what you find when you open the doors of the lock...

Mmmm... Gotta keep goin... No room to manoeuvre... How're we gonna get past this?

I know!! Let's use the bow thruster to push it all out in front of us.

Ok... Slowly slowly, now...

Whoa!! There's a bloody great log in the middle of that..

So, after about fifteen minutes of blasting the debris with the bow thruster and shaken' the s#^t out of the ship, this sailed out from underneath...

And off we went...

And now, off I go...

See ya.

Roamin' down the Rhone...

And so we arrived in Lyon, France. The coach - I'm not supposed to call it a bus - pulls off the motorway, makes it through the tollbooth and then pulls over. After a few minutes of discussion between our German guide, the Spanish Bus - sorry "coach" - Driver and a lady up the front who wanted to know what was going on, it turns out the bus - sorry "coach" - driver didn't know where to go and was waiting for the other bus - sorry "coach" - to turn up to lead the way. Anyway, eventually off we went. Wandering through the suburbs of Lyon for the next twenty minutes or so until we came to a river. Across we go, faithfully following the other bus - sorry "coach" - off the bridge, right turn and follow the river. 

Turns out there are two rivers in Lyon. Who knew? Obviously not the bus - sorry "coach" - drivers, and the river we were following was the Saone when we should have been following the Rhone. Easy mistake, right? Anyway, they sorted themselves out and away we went to find another bridge. Across we went, turn right and follow the river. Beauty! So after a bit the bus - sorry "coach" - in front does another right and crosses another bridge...?? Mmmmm! When we get to the other side he does another right turn, so now we're heading back the way we came, but on the other side of the river. But don't worry... 'cause when we get to the next bridge he does another right - crosses the river again - does another right and we're all sweet... Albeit a bit confused! Anyway we eventually find the ship - 'cause you're not allowed to call it a boat - and start to board. 

First impression of the new craft? The guy playing an accordion to welcome us on board with his little brother standing beside him...

Just in case I forget - this musician is great. He played in the lounge every afternoon for the next week and his choice of music and the volume were perfect. I hope he gets a permanent gig, 'cause he was good.

So, on we go and sort ourselves out, then it's into the lounge for the Captain's Welcome. Some of us got a bit more of a welcome than others...

I tried to get a cuddle from "just call me Captain Danni" but... Cest la vie.

So there were a few surprises during the welcome. Turns out if you've got four gold bars on the sleeve of your jacket you get to be captain. There's another story there but I'll tell you about that later. Next surprise; new Cruise Director. Unfortunately Kate had to leave us but, she left us in Emma's more than capable hands. Next surprise; we're staying in Lyon for a day or two, 'cause the river's too high and we can't get under the bridges. But don't fret - nobody's missing out on anything 'cause we've arranged to do the next day's tours by bus - sorry "coach" - and it means we get to spend an extra night in Lyon. Anyway, it's all good 'cause the boat - sorry "ship" - is full of Aussies on holiday and as long as the bar's stocked who cares?

Now as it turned out, this was the start of what became a pretty hectic week. Looking back, I'm pretty sure the only person who would know where we went and which tours we did over the next seven days would be the Cruise Director and I wouldn't be surprised if she was a bit confused about it all, as well. I know it wasn't quite, but it felt like two different tours each day, every day - and like a good pseudo Aussie tourist I'm never satisfied. If there had been less I'd be complaining of "not enough to do". Anyway, I'm not really going to tell you about the tours yet, except that, the one that scored highest was the "Ghost Walk" at Viviers and there were two that scored the lowest - the day we spent at Rudesheim and the tour we did of the Papal Palace in Avignon.

Anyway, here's some photos of Margurite, the ghost of Viviers...

And here's a photo of Margurite's mum and dad, who were our tour guides for the night....

Not only was this tour fun and interesting, because of the way it was done it's something we'll remember.

So on we sailed and there were lots of other interesting bits that you'll hear about, but eventually we reached Arles, and now comes the tricky bit...

I don't really want to end this post with a negative, 'cause overall, we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves. But, APT, you should know that the ship's staff got the disembarkation all wrong, and left six of your customers with a very poor last impression. The instructions for those staying in Arles - and there were six of us - were to place our bags in the corridor at 09:00 so the porters could move them out onto the dock. Not before 09:00, or they would be mixed up with other luggage going onto Monte Carlo or Barcelona, and then to wait in the lounge until 9:30 when a taxi would arrive to take us to our hotels. So, out went the luggage into the corridor, out went us, into the lounge, and not two minutes later one of the ship's crew came to tell us the taxi was waiting. 

So off we go to the taxi (mini van), to discover the luggage is still in the corridor on the ship. There's no staff to be seen anywhere so, back we go, manhandle the suitcases down the stairs to the lobby - which is absolutely deserted - and start to lug it up the gangway, across another vessel we're moored to - up another gangway, to the taxi. Very poor, we thought. Then to add insult to injury, the taxi driver demanded 10€ each for three couples to take us from one side of town to the other - a distance Denise and I walked the next day in less than fifteen minutes.

Sorry APT, but not a nice note to end on.

Anyway, now we've moved on to the next little adventure, which is a few days in Arles and a few days in Orange, but more about that later.

In the meantime here's some photos from some of the tours we did and a few of life on the river.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102502153151045712202/LyonToArles?noredirect=1

Bye, now!

Just get on the bus, will ya!!

When I was at school one of the things that a teacher told me that actually stuck was... "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line". So, when I found out we had to leave one vessel at Basel on the Rhine and move to another vessel at Lyon on the Rhone, and we had to do it by Coach, I looked up Google Maps and found out they agree. There's two major routes that go between these places - one takes almost three hours and the other takes a bit over four hours. But, as it turns out, the best way to go takes something over ten hours...

Now, so far on this River Cruise, we'd been on four or five bus tours and there's one thing that I know for sure... I'm not a fan. Denise likes 'em. Get her on a bus and you can almost guarantee she'll be asleep within five minutes. But, I gotta say, if you're gonna be stuck on a bus for ten hours, this is a really nice way to do it.

The first place we stopped was Gruyeres. Yep... World famous for cheese. But is should be world famous for the views as well...

This is what the view was like from the bus on the way...

Yep! That's snow alright!

And this is what it's like from the rest stop on the side of the highway in Gruyeres...

So, after a walk around, a cup of tea and a pitstop, it was on to Vevey on Lake Geneva for lunch. My old mate Charlie Chaplin used to live here and he's quite a celebrity with the locals, so we had a bit of a catchup...

and then took in the view over the lake while we had our lunch...

So, despite my misgivings and wingeing when we set out (sorry Darling!), it turned out to be a really great trip. A few hours after leaving Vevey we arrived in Lyon to start our next little adventure, but I'll tell you more about that later.

In the meantime, here's a few more photos of Switzerland.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102502153151045712202/BaselToLyon?noredirect=1

See ya, Bye!

What??... Explain yourself!!

It sounds like I'm confusing some of you with these posts, (not mentioning any names, Ashleigh Storey!) so here's an attempt to clarify a couple of things... If some of you are still a bit fuzzy about what I'm talkin' about... Wweeeelll!!

So... What's a "lock"? As far as I can work out the correct name for "Lock" in German is "Lock". But the name for ""Lock" in French is "ecluses", and here's an attempt to explain what a lock is...

- Bored yet??

The Rhine River springs into life in the Swiss Alps. From the spring it flows north and meets the sea in Holland. The spring is something over 2000 metres above sea level. A lot of this difference in altitude is reduced at the start of the river, but as the river flows through Germany, the altitude of the river is still quite high and falls gradually as it moves towards the mouth. 

But, vessels can't normally navigate these falls, due to natural hazards like "narrows" and "waterfalls" and "rapids". So, every now and then, along the length of the river weirs (small dams) were built, so on the upstream side of the river the water would be one height and on the downstream side the water level would be significantly lower. The differerence between the upstream and downstream levels varies from place to place and is normally about ten metres, but can be as much as 23 metres.

Now, to get a vessel either up or down the river, past these weirs, they built locks into the weirs. This is what a typical lock looks like, when you look at it from upstream where the level's higher...

So, if you're going downstream, you enter the lock at the high level, they close the doors behind you and let the water out of the lock - to flow downstream until you're at the downstream level. Then they open the downstream gates and away you go. 

If you're going upstream, you enter the lock at the lower level and they close the doors behind you. Once you're all tucked in they let water from the upstream side flow into the lock, until you rise to the upstream level. Then they open the upstream gates and away you go. Clear as mud?

Anyway, this is us, sitting in a lock, heading downstream, waiting for the lock doors to close behind us and for the water to be released downstream...

Here we are in the same place after the level's been lowered... 

We're looking at a sheer concrete wall...

and here we are coming out of the lock on the downstream side...

K??

Now, to get really boring... "French Balcony"

Back in the day, Napolean decided to sort out Paris and to get rid of all the cramped housing and sewers in the street to try to eliminate diseases, etc... So he hired a guy named Housemann who basically flattened Paris and rebuilt it. Housemann designed a particular style of house that used "French Doors", as windows.... See? These are now known as "Housemannian" apartments.

Anyway, a "French Door" opens outwards and is about 300 to 400 millimetres wide, so needs this amount of space to open. In most buildings, the door is set back a little in the frame and what you end up with is a balustrade (railing) that sits a few hundred millimetres off the face of the building. This is to allow the door to open. This small space means you can actually go outside and close the door behind you.

But... On the ships we've been travelling on, which advertise cabins with "French Balconys", they use sliding doors and the gap between the doors and the ballustrade is only about fifty millimetres. So, no matter how hard my wife makes me try, I can't go out onto the "French Balcony" and close the door behind me.

See what I mean? 

Now that I've explained all this, do you really care?

No, thought not. Me either!

And a very good night to you.

From A to B - a week of luxury.

Amsterdam to Basel. Amazing to breathtaking. Overall - a great experience - even though the reality has been a little different from the expected 'cause  all the rivers we're travelling have high water. This means they're about eight metres deep instead of the more usual three to four. They don't call it a flood until the level gets to more than ten metres.

So the poor Cruise Director has had to make alternative travel arrangements, almost on a daily basis, to make sure 137 Aussies, 2 Singaporeans and 6 token Kiwis get to enjoy all the experiences of a Rhine River Cruise.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, 'cause the boarding was an experience all on its own. After our learning experience with suitcases and cobbled streets when we arrived in Amsterdam, we decided that the only way to get to the ship to start the cruise was by taxi. A brand new Mercedes taxi of course. So we arrived at the gangway to the MS Armachello...

and were met by a hoard of very friendly, uniformed people who whisked our suitcases away, invited us on board and immediately took possession of our passports. This photo's actually from where we stopped at the first lock. I was a bit overwhelmed at the boarding and didn't think to take any photos.

Then came one of the great unexplained mysteries of our time. When we stepped up to the reception desk on the ship, no one even knew our names. In a matter of a few minutes we had checked in and were shown straight to our room - where our bags were sitting waiting for us!!... How did they know which room to put them in??

Anyway, after sorting ourselves out we wandered down to the lounge...

Where we were joined by lots of friendly, smiling fellow passengers, all keen to make sure they were going to enjoy this experience.

So, over the last seven days, we've enjoyed pretty much every aspect of shipboard life. The room was obviously not the largest room we've stayed in, but it was clean, well appointed and the service staff were excellent. We struggled a little bit with the concept of the French Balcony...

but that was OK. It made it more interesting when we went through locks...

Yeah... I know! You can't even tell what the photos are, can you?

So, the top one is the first lock we went through in Amsterdam. The next three are taken from the "French Balcony" in our room. The top right one shows us entering a lock. The bottom left one shows us in the lock with another vessel entering behind us. The bottom right shows the same view but after the lock has been filled and the vessels are now about 10 metres higher than when we entered the lock. The reason I didn't take these photos through the day was 'cause I was busy, out being a tourist.

Anyway, after having cruised the Rhine for a week, two things have happened. I've become an expert on locks -  so if you want to know anything more just ask and I'll see if I can find someone to answer your questions. 

The other thing that's happened is that I became an expert on Rhine River Traffic. It seems that the majority of barges on the river are privately owned and they operate pretty much the same way an Owner Driver operates a truck and trailer unit in New Zealand - with one significant difference. The barge is also home for the wife and family. 

So, seeing a barge with either one or two cars on deck is very normal. Apparently when the barge is loading or unloading, the car will be swung onto shore and mum will use it to go and do the groceries and take the kids out to blow off a bit of steam. When they're ready to go - these barges have a tare weight of 150 tonne, so it can take a day or two to load them - they swing the car(s) back on board and off they go.

Have you heard the term: "Loaded to the gunnels"? That means nothing to these guys 'cause in a lot of cases the gunnels are under water... Literally!!

I guess if you're getting paid by the tonne you just keep throwing it on, but some of these barges are operated with no freeboard at all. When I saw the first one I immediately thought there was something wrong - but no! That's how you do it on the Rhine.

Anyway, enough boy stuff. On the last day of the cruise, the hotel staff put on a German lunch - it has a special unpronounceable name that I can't remember - and It was great...

So now I know there's a basic methodology to the way these tours work. Every time the ship (you're not allowed to call it a boat!) stops you have a choice of a couple of local tours, or you can wander off by yourself, or you can hang out on the boat. The tours seem to be either local walking tours or coach trips to surrounding areas. We did all we could when we could and we've been on some pretty interesting activities and some really interesting activities. Some of these I'll write about later.

In the meantime, here's a few photos our trip down the Rhine on the MS Armachello..

And, here's a link you can follow to see some more...

https://picasaweb.google.com/102502153151045712202/Armachello?noredirect=1

Bye for now.

Amsterdam - what a nice surprise!

Amsterdam was great. I had a preconceived idea of what this city would be like - based on nothing more than a few casual aquantances with Dutch people living in New Zealand, a few random photos I've seen in magazines, and I think I've tasted a few Dutch chocolates and cheeses over the years, but after spending just three nights in Is city, I'd hafta say: great place to visit, and I probably wouldn't mind living there - for awhile.

So, when we arrived, we wandered out to the front of the train station with our suitcases and the intention of catching a taxi to the hotel. There was an official looking dude with a bright yellow jacket on sorting all the confused passengers out and telling taxis where to go. We showed him the address for our hotel and he pointed across the square and said there it was, so off we went. What he didn't tell us was that the street's 327 miles long and our hotel's at the other end.

Anyway, for the next 20 or so minutes, we wandered the cobbled streets of Amsterdam with our two suitcases. Another mistake. By the time we reached the hotel my poor wife was well and truly over it. Anyway, after descending the steps down to the front door and battling our way into the hotel, we were checked in, given directions to our room, pointed to the elevator and sent on our way.

Now I don't know that Denise and I with two suitcases take up an awful lot of room, but it was a tight squeeze in the elevator. Our room number was 502, so thinking like a normal person I went to push the number for the fifth floor to discover that the elevator only went to the fourth floor - 'cause that's the top floor of the hotel. So, after standing in the elevator for a week or so looking at each other in an increasingly confused manner, we read the big sign right in front of us to discover that room 502 is - in fact - on the fourth floor. 

After pushing the right buttons and reaching the top floor we started wandering down the corridor following the arrows that pointed to room 502, and the first thing we came to was a flight of stairs - going down??..... So, like good little hotel guests, we continued down the stairs, 'round the corner still following the arrows and found another, longer flight of stairs - going up!! and there was room 502. 

After that experience we thought we'd better go and have a cuppa, so off we went and immediately started finding some of the treasures of Amsterdam...

and then we found more..... treasures!!...

and even more.....

 This city is just absolutely... In your face... but the thing is, here that's the norm. No one makes any excuses or apologies for it. That's just the way it is... and it's honest, and refreshing and the whole city has a vitality and charm that's unique and fantastic.

But it's also beautiful. Not like other cities are... again, Amsterdam doesn't seem to bow to anyone else's tradition, it just is!

and when you think you've got it straight in your head it shows you a whole different side...

Three great days... Wonderful!!

Here's some more of Amsterdam. Hope you enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/102502153151045712202/Amsterdam?noredirect=1

It's "All aboard" for us... we're off on our river excursion down the Rhine.

See ya!

Paris - au revoir

We left Paris today. Fourteen days of wandering about the nicest city I've ever been in. Not that I've been in a lot and I might not have a very wide view of things, but - there's one thing I'm very pleased about, and that's that we visited Rome before Paris and not after - as was originally planned.

I was happy to leave Rome. I'm sure there are people who love that city, but I'm not a real fan. Whereas I could've stayed in Paris for another two weeks, or two months, or maybe even two years. Having said that, the actual leaving bit was quite surreal. We left from Gare De Nord, one of the seven major train stations in Paris. When you arrive at the station, it's as imposing and impressive as any of the others, and as you approach there's an expectation that you'll find the inside to be bright and beautiful, with lots of nice shops and cafés... 

But when you get inside you actually feel disconnected from Paris 'cause it's just a lot of plain concrete floors and walls, bollards everywhere, a few very ordinary shops and cafés, lots of beggars and a few young men, that haven't needed to learn how to shave yet, wandering about with automatic rifles at the ready...

See the woman sitting on the Crash Barrier in the background? This is 'cause there's nowhere to sit for the hundreds of people we saw waiting to catch trains.

Anyway, that's enough negativity. It was only a couple of hours and I was probably in the wrong frame of mind as I didn't really want to leave. 

So what was the thing we most enjoyed in Paris? 

It's difficult to explain, but, here goes...

It's not a place; it's not a "thing", it's not the people. It's all these things and more. It's being able to be totally immersed in the culture and atmosphere of the city. When we were in Italy, there were places and people that made us welcome, and there were a lot of enjoyable experiences, but we always felt like tourists and a little apart from the real Italy. In Paris, this wasn't the case. We could walk down the street to the Metro and catch a train, just like everyone else. We could walk into a shop or a cafe and be treated just like everyone else. We could go to the market and buy our fruit and veges, just like everyone else. Or we could go and be a tourist, just like everyone else. Yep - there were a lot of French tourists about, and there was no discernible difference in the way they were treated compared to us. 

So this was a big part of what we enjoyed about Paris, but it was more than that. Parisians, as a group, seem to have a sense of self worth that they display unconsciously in their general attitude and conciously in their dress and in the way they interact with each other. When you become aware of this you tend to want to emulate them. But, at the same time, as individuals they are self-deprecating, and very quick to laugh at themselves, or at you, if you're being a dick! 

The actual things we saw... mindboggling!! How to describe them?... Difficult!

Highlights...

The walking tour of the Latin Quarter.

The Lilly Pond at Monet's Garden.

The Marais District...

Montmarte...

The Bastille...

And... The rest of Paris!

I know I haven't done this city justice with these words! but they're the only ones I have, so they'll have to suffice. If I had the wherewithal to sit and write for days on end I might be able to do better, but... 

We've now moved on to a new experience called Amsterdam, and just in the last day and a bit, this city has imposed itself on me in lots of different and impressive ways and given me another task to complete, so, for now... Au revoir Paree!