and draining into the North Sea.
Several tributaries feed the
Rhine, among them is the Necker,
overlooked by the quaint university
city of Heidelberg, and the Moselle,
which twists and turns along a
narrow, forest-clad valley.
e Main flows through
Frankfurt, Germany's financial
powerhouse but with a lovely old
centre, the Römerberg (Roman
Hill), where a series of elegant
patrician houses have been joined
to create the Rathaus (town hall).
en in nearby Würzburg, the
Bishop's Residenz is one of Europe's
finest baroque palaces, with ornate
frescoes and immaculate gardens.
roughout history, the Rhine
has defined borders and empires.
Caesar's armies reached what is
now Cologne in 51 BC and built
the first bridge, giving them access
to the right bank and the hostile
territories beyond. e waterway
is dotted with former Roman
settlements, vestiges of which
remain in the form of ancient walls
and watchtowers. By the Middle
Ages, the Rhine was a treacherous
route for sailors; every bend was
guarded by a castle and bribes and
taxes had to be paid to sail past.
Passenger shipping in a much
more civilised form began with the
evolution of the paddle steamer in
1836, returning after the war until
the 1960s, when more modern
hotel ships started to appear.
Shipping on the river changed
forever in 1992 with the opening
of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal,
an engineering masterpiece that
allowed ships, for the first time, to
sail all the way from the North Sea,
along the Rhine, through the canal
to join the Main, into the Danube
and east to the Black Sea.
ere are many highlights of
a Rhine voyage, from the rolling
hills of the Black Forest to the
half-timbered houses and market
squares of Strasbourg, where hours
can be whiled away in a street café,
sampling fruity Alsace wines.
For the length of the Rhine
Gorge, the scenery is dominated
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VIKING
