A giant a part of the river cruise expertise goes via locks. Last summer time, on our Portraits of Southern France itinerary with Viking River Cruises, we went via a bunch of them. Raising or decreasing only one or a number of boats at a time, the locks, canals, and waterways that make up the Danube’s navigation system.
The distinguishing characteristic of a lock is a hard and fast chamber by which the water stage could be different. We have been via a wide range of completely different locks on our voyage as seen on this picture album.
In current years, strikes by the operators of the lock system introduced disruption not solely to river cruises however to the transport of freight as nicely. In Germany, lock keepers performed rolling strikes, which prolonged past the preliminary timeframe and resulted in some locks being quickly closed.
The Altenwörth Lock in Austria was working with one in every of two chambers open, which had the potential to trigger a minor delay in crusing time relying on river visitors on the time a ship is passing via. For that purpose, river cruises could arrive early or late at locations.
Just a few Viking ships had their crusing schedules altered by the closure of locks through the strike as they did throughout instances of excessive (or low) water ranges.
But in December, with snow and ice and frozen temperatures, will the locks freeze?
In February 2012, that was certainly a priority as a “Russian winter” local weather sample saved Europe frozen as a robust Siberian anticyclone hovered over northern Russia and triggered intense chilly and snow.
That is just not occurring proper now so we must be good to go.
Just a few years in the past, the Danube did freeze and its freezing was simply one in every of many extreme winter occasions on the time. Heavy snowfall blocked roads and stranded cities in central Italy. A prepare in Montenegro was stranded on the tracks for 3 days attributable to heavy snow. Even Venice’s well-known canals froze and that by no means occurs. But that chilly streak was the worst in many years, stated Jim Andrews, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com in a Scientific American report.
This is what you usually tend to expertise: