Dateline: Bernkasel, Germany. One more pretty little town along the Mosel River. Practically every hillside hereabouts is covered with grapevines; this is the home of the German white wines. The valley is probably 3-400 ft. deep, with the river running at the bottom. It is a bigtime vacation area, people come to enjoy the views, boat, play in the water, drink the wines, and generally have a good time. The towns reflect this emphasis on wine and tourism, and the river is navigable at least as far up as Trier, courtesy of some small dams and locks.
As noted before, river cruising in Europe is one of the more pleasant things to do. People do day cruises, overnighters, and long ones like the one we’re on. I’m noting a substantial number of RVs here too, mostly modest sized Class C rigs with a few not-too-big Class As. I’m not seeing many trailers, or what the Brits would call “caravans.” I wonder how many of these motorhomes are rentals? Rentals would make sense here as most Europeans don’t have somewhere to park an RV when they’re not using it.
People do recreation along the Rhine but you get the feeling that it is mostly a cargo route. The Mosel is mostly about recreation, cargo and freight are secondary uses. One thing that puzzles me, why are there so many bulk carriers loaded with gravel? In the States we don’t much transport gravel long distances. Does this mean that gravel isn’t widely available in Europe? That would seem to be the conclusion.
I’ve talked about the work and passenger boats on these rivers but there are private pleasure boats too, cabin cruisers and runabouts. My guess is that you’d have to be very well-off to have a boat on the rivers here, as they aren’t all that common. In a day’s cruising we’ll pass maybe half a dozen. I’m thinking one could see most of Europe by boat, living aboard and popping ashore with your bicycle or motorbike to poke about there. I have no idea what the lockage and dockage fees would be like. I see people catching a free mooring here and there, but there’d be no getting around locking fees.
