Rhine river cruise - Facts
The Rhine River , whose name comes from the Celtic word renos, meaning raging flow, starts at the Rheinwaldhorn Glacier in the Swiss Alps and flows north and east approximately 820 miles (1,320 km). The glacier is situated northeast across the mountains from the town of Andermatt in the Uri canton (state/province). The Rhine starts out as a turbulent Alpine stream churning through deep gorges, and although the river’s flow is moderated reasonably as it passes through the Lake of Constance (Bodensee), the river remains a torrent westward to Basel. Just south of Chur, Switzerland, the Hinter Rhine, flowing northwesternly from the glacier, joins the Voder Rhine streaming from Lake Tuma, to form the Rhine proper at Reichenau. The river then flows north to Lake Constance and west through Schaffhausen to Basel, Switzerland. Near Schaffhausen it plunges 23 m (75 ft) over a spectacular waterfall, the Rheinfall.
At Basel the river turns north and enters the Rhine Graben, a flat-floored rift valley lying between the Vosges Mountains on the west and the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) on the east. Strasbourg, France, a central point for merging water routes from the Paris Basin, is situated at the valley’s northern extremity. With the junction of the Main River at Mainz, in Germany, the Rhine’s seasonal regime becomes more stabilised. Along its course from Bingen to Bonn is a beautiful stretch of the Rhine Valley. The river has cut the deep, steepsided Rhine Gorge through the Rhineland Plateau and the Rhenish Slate Mountains. This picturesque gorge, with terraced vineyards and castle-lined cliffs, has often been addressed the “heroic Rhine,” famed in history and romantic literature. It is complete with fairy tale castles and vineyards nested in the overhanging rock face, known as the Mittelrhein.
The river flows past Bonn, Germany and becomes the Lower Rhine and comes out onto the North German Plain before it empties into the North Sea. Leading cities on the stream’s banks are Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Duisburg. At the Netherlands frontier, it separates into two parallel distributaries, the Lek and the Waal, as it crosses a wide, swampy plain and a great delta before entering the North Sea. Much of this area is at or below sea level, but dyking contributed to its becoming one of the most densely populated and important economic regions on the continent. Rotterdam, the leading port of continental Europe, is situated near the river’s mouth. It passes through or borders on the countries of Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
Because of the multi countries and languages, the river has four names. They are: Rhein, Germany; Rhin, France; Rijn, Netherlands (Dutch) and Rhenus, (Latin). There are many other important tributaries that flow into the Rhine. In fact, the Rhine splits into two affluents near Emmerich, Germany and Zevenaar, Netherlands. Those are the Lek on the north and the Waal on the south. Some of the main tributaries are: the Mosselle (Mosel), that runs south west bordering Luxembourg and on into France; the Neckar that flows south east at Manneheim on through Heidelburg, Germany; the Main, flowing east and south from Mainz through Frankfurt, Germany. The principal rivers of Western Europe, including the Seine, Elbe, Ems, Rhône, and Saône, are linked to it by canals. East of Frankfurt is where The Rhine-Main-Danube Canal links the Rhine with the Danube River, providing a transcontinental route from the North Sea to the Black Sea near Odessa, Ukraine.
