Surprises around every bend

Published Apr 8, 2014

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A cloak of grey mist and low cloud envelops the narrowing gorge of the Rhine River in an eerie quiet… there’s a not-quite-silence unpicked in places by the tinkle of eddies over rocks, sounds at odds with the almost noiseless passage of the river to the North Sea.

It’s vaguely creepy, a feeling enhanced by the menacing, sometimes gloomy turrets of the castles which perch high on rocky outcrops, still on guard after centuries, still, you feel, watching for strangers.

You can imagine being a simple boatman on this, Europe’s most important river, in times past – ferrying goods up or downstream, surrounded by the peasant myths of your people.

Two corners ahead, she lies in wait for you. An impossibly beautiful blonde woman brushing her golden hair, singing to herself. Unless you block your ears, unless you look away, you will be snared, drawn in to your death as your flimsy craft dashes itself to pieces on the treacherous rocks below where she sits.

Our modern river cruise ship, Uniworld’s SS Antoinette, has the radar, the GPS, the echo sounders to avoid the hazards of this, the narrowest section of the 1 200km river, and Captain Peter Koopmans, charming though he is, is a straight-talking Netherlander unlikely to be distracted from his job by a siren song.

As we approach the Lorelei, the clouds evaporate and so does the atmosphere of legend and fable. The 120m rock – it’s more like an extension of the mountain slope – can be seen clearly.

A road runs below it and the previous stillness is dissipated by the sounds of cars and trucks. It’s pretty, but it’s not ominous.

Then we discover from tour director Hildegard Peikert – who is giving running commentary – that Lorelei was a comparatively recently invented story.

There was no Lorelei of legend. The rock is, indeed, known by that name, which is said to come from the old German words “lureln” (Rhine dialect for “murmuring”) and the Celtic term “ley” (rock). So, Loreley is the “murmuring rock”.

In 1801, German author Clemens Brentano composed his ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine, describing an enchanting female associated with the rock. In the poem (so says Wikipedia), the beautiful Lore Lay, betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way there, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so and falls to her death; the rock still retains an echo of her name afterwards.

In 1824, Heinrich Heine adapted Brentano’s theme in one of his most famous poems, Die Lorelei. It describes a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks.

It’s a bit of a disappointment to learn that the legend is the equivalent of a modern TV soap opera, but wending your way up (or down) the river which was really the world’s first superhighway, the blend of history, geography, culture and cuisine mean there are surprises around each bend.

Uniworld’s “Castles Along the Rhine” cruise – a seven-night all-inclusive package that is part of the company’s Boutique River Collection – starts either in Amsterdam or in Basel, each port sitting at the end of the navigable part of the river.

And, as you go, you absorb the millenia of history of a river which has shaped modern Europe and which continues to be a lifeline of commerce.

As you stand, dwarfed by the awesome spires of the Cologne Cathedral (which at their highest point tower 157m above street level, the second-tallest spires in Europe) and you look east, you can imagine Romans gazing at the land beyond the Rhine, the land of the “Barbarians”. Despite its power and military strength, Roman’s legionaires never managed to subdue the Germanic tribes of the hinterland, whose fierce warrior bravery handed the Empire some of its most bloody defeats.

Those tribes amalgamated, split and got back together again over the centuries as Germania became one of the strongest powers in Europe. And there are statues which proudly display that Teutonic pride and power.

In Koblenz, at the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) where the Mosel and Rhine Rivers join, there is an impressive monument to German Emperor William I, which sees him sitting atop a horse which is almost 15m tall and which was erected in 1897 by his grandson William II.

The monument became a symbol of German unity, and in particular to underline the fact that the Germans would never surrender their territory to the French, their arch-rivals.

Upriver, in Rudesheim, there is another monument commemorating a German victory over the French in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. It features a statue of lady Germania holding in her hands the recovered symbols of German nationhood. These days, the view from the monument – accessible by cable car or a strenuous uphill hike of about 2km – is stunning, and history seems a long way off.

In Strasbourg, capital of the French Alsace region, the history of the struggle back and forth between Germans and French over the centuries is writ large – you can still find postcards by a local artist who in the late 1800s and early 1900s drew derogatory and racist cartoons of Germans, for example.

But Strasbourg today is the home of the European Parliament and a symbol of the new, less contentious Europe.

As we drift along the canals of the town in a sight-seeing boat, I can see how the past shaped the present and can see that peace has come to Europe. Then I think about Crimea, and I wonder.

Of course, one cannot travel anywhere in Europe without encountering its darker past. In Koblenz, our guide Yoraj Schatzke – who sports a Hebrew name and a Star of David earring, but is not Jewish – takes us to the remains of the old Jewish ghetto.

Most of it was ransacked and hundreds of people killed by their Christian counterparts after a young boy was found dead alongside the Rhine – and the Jews blamed for supposedly using him in their Pesach (Passover) rituals.

Then, she reminds of that more recent past. She wonders aloud how all the “good Germans” could not have been aware of what was happening to the Jews in their midst. If only, she says, people had stood up and objected at “Kristel Nacht”, when Jewish homes and businesses were torched, then things may have turned out differently and the Nazis may have abandoned their Holocaust.

It’s a sobering, but illuminating moment. And, I am reminded, travel should not exclusively be about happy feelings.

As much as the Rhine is about culture and history, Europe is also all about food. They refuse to be completely Big Mac’d or KFC’d out of their uniqueness.

We visit Schloss Johannisberg (the original one), where they make some of the finest white wines in Germany. The Rheingau region has a mild climate and plenty of sunshine and used to be (until countries like Finland got in on the act) the northern-most wine-growing region in Europe.

Johannisberg’s cellar dates back to the 1200s when wine-growing was the sole preserve of the church and, some wit in the group notes that the wines taste so good because they have a “heavenly helper”.

One evening on the ship, there is a special gourmet dinner – part of Uniworld’s Epicurean Adventurer programme – featuring wines and specialities of the region. I pay it the appropriate courtesy by donning a tie and jacket – and am happy to see many other guests in their evening finery.

Outside, the river flows past, as the ship ambles upstream at 15km/h. And I am reminded: life, all this around us, will come and go. The river will always be there.

l Brendan Seery travelled on the SS Antoinette as a guest of Uniworld Boutique River Cruises. www.uniworldcruises.co.za

 

If You Go...

Priced from R36 300 a person sharing plus port charges of R1 540 a person, enjoy a seven-night cruise from Amsterdam to Basel (or vice versa) with departures from April to November sailing either the SS Antoinette or the River Queen (depending on cruise date). This cruise is all-inclusive – shore hosted excursions, gratuities, all meals on board, scheduled airport transfers, internet and wi-fi access, all entertainment and cultural enrichment onboard, plus you’ll stay in the finest river view staterooms, many with French balconies. www.uniworldcruises.co.za - Saturday Star

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