Writes of Passage

At the moment, I don’t really want to travel. But this one has to go: to celebrate Norbert’s 80th birthday. During this trip, which is from Sept 10 to 25, in and out of Frankfurt (FRA) on Lufthansa, we stopped at

^{My itinerary}

• ^11-15 Frankfurt and Middle Rhine Valley
• ^15-18 Prague
• ^18-21 Budapest
• ^21-25 Istanbul

As usual, we survived on credit card entirely, except the last charge to Istanbul airport. The cabbie insisted that non of our credit card worked. Be aware of bad apples and prepare for the unethical vendors, bring some small bills.

^Logistic  

• US↔Frankfurt (FRA) on Lufthansa
• Fra→Prague on Lufthansa
• Prague→Budapest by bus
• Buda→Istanbul on Turkish Air
• Ist→Fra on Lufthansa

I’d delete ^{Some details} 

1. ^{Sun 10} 5:55pm leaving
2. ^{Mon 11, 9:10am} Ffm 
3. ^{Tue 12} →Middle Rhine Valley
4. ^{Wed 13} ..
5. ^{Thur 14} →Ffm.
6. ^{Fri 15, 8:35am LH1392} Ffm→Prague
7. ^{Sat 16} Prg 
8. ^{Sun 17} Prague
9. ^{Mon 18} →Budapest
10. ^{Tue 19} Budapest
11. ^{Wed 20} Budapest
12. ^{Thu 21} →Istanbul
13. ^{Fri 22} I 
14. ^{Sat 23} I 
15. ^{Sun 24} I 
16. ^{Mon 25} →home: the cab driver 

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Rhine River cruise includes several European countries, such as Germany, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands.

Rhine is one of the major river in Europe, starting from Swiss Alps, passing through Austria, Germany and empty into North Sea from Netherland, about 760 miles (1230 km). It’s the 2nd longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube).

When mentioning Rhine, most people associate it with Germany. There are six distinct sections, per Mike Wells:

1. Alpenrhein (Alpine Rhine) is the combination of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein tributaries that flow rapidly down the north side of the Alps, along deep glacial valleys, into Bodensee.
2. Hochrhein (Higher Rhine) continues descending through broad wooded gorges providing the border between Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg (Germany) from Bodensee to Basel.
3. Oberrhein (Upper Rhine) meanders north from Basel across a broad plain, between the Vosges mountains in French Alsace and the German Black Forest, as far as Mainz.
4. Mittelrhein (Middle Rhine) is a picturesque stretch from Mainz to Bonn, where the river has cut the Rhine Gorge between the Hunsrück/Eifel mountains (west) and the Taunus/Siebengebirge ranges (east).
5. Niederrhein (Lower Rhine) crosses the North German Plain from Bonn to the Dutch border.
6. Delta Rijn (Rhine Delta) is the Dutch part of the river, which divides into five different arms to reach the North Sea.

#4 Mittelrhein Middle Rhine is the most scenic and usually used as river cruise advertisement. I went to part of Middle Rhine valley many times. Most recently, in 2022 and 2023.

• 2023 Middle Rhine
• 2022