In hydrological point of view the German section of the Danube offers many interesting places. First of all: where does the Danube come from? There are two branches, the Breg and Brigach, and a wonderful well at Donaueschingen. Then there is the “Donauversickerung” phenomenon. This is the place where the Danube simply decides, that this time it flows right into the North Sea, rather than the Black Sea. And at Passau, the city of three rivers we find the estuary of the Inn river. You have to know, Inn has a discharge 7% more than the Danube. Moreover at first sight Inn is wider and somehow its color is different. Despite all, the Danube can keep its name and the Inn dissolves in the smaller river.
24 January 2013
23 January 2013
Fragmentum
It all started, when I found a piece of pottery on a Visegrád hillside with dense shrubs. At least it seemed like one. This piece of pottery is a meaningless garbage in ones hand, but it starts to talk in another persons hand. It tells a tale of the Danube, of wars, of mighty rulers, of huge forts and of the final collapse of an empire.
19 January 2013
A Danubian saint - St. John of Nepomuk
Earlier I haven't noticed these statues. I walked them by as anybody else these days. Moreover I did not even read the inscription below them, of if I did I forgot soon this complicated name. Later on, as I walked more and more on the banks of the Danube, at the back of my mind there was a déja vu - Wow, I might have seen this statue before. Since then, any place I have been wandering near the Danube, orhave I been crossing ot on a ferry, I greeted St. John of Nepomuk as an old friend of mine.
17 January 2013
Roaming the Croatian Danube-bend
The "Croatian Danube-bend expression in the title may not considered as an existing geographical name. I am not sure if anybody has used this expression before me. In this case it is not the scenery, or the rangy landscape that might resemble us the Hungarian Danube-bend, but it is because of the sudden change in the rivers direction. Let us look at this map, and explore this section of the river between Kopacki Rit and Vukovar (fig. 1.).
1. The Croatian Danube-bend and the mouth of Drava |
15 January 2013
Lighthouses of the Danube
Heartly I admit that until last week I had no knowledge of the Danubian lighthouses. At least I had a suspicion that maybe I have seen one in Vienna. I was quite sure that there must be some in the Danube-delta, one for every branch, but those are belonging to the Black Sea – I thought. Then I came upon Béla Vályi’s monumental map on the Danube valley in the known Hungarian geographer, Jenő Cholnoky’s heritage. As I was browsing these sections I saw something strange in the mouth of the Tisza river: a lighthouse! Wow, does it still exists?
05 January 2013
Fallen star of the Danube - The ephemeral Tündér Island
In the Szentendre Danue, opposite the Luppa Island, there was a small
island, which praises the work of Hungarian water construction and river
regulation works. It praises it, because few similarly effective regulatory
objects were built in the neighborhood. The Tündér (means Fairy in english) Island cross dam and
some other works in less than 50 years made disappear a whole river
branch together with its islands.
Do you see the 4 islands? In the middle, the entrance of the Fairy Island’s branch. |
01 January 2013
Summary of the year 2012
If I had to briefly summarize the year of 2012 from the point of view of the Danube Islands, I would only say: it was very good. However, as not even the most withdrawn school director would say a one-sentence speech at the year closing celebration, let us see more in detail what happened in this year on the hungarian version, the Dunai Szigetek.
We climbed up the Megyeri bridge, Budapest |
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