The devil's bridge in Regensburg

MAGYARUL

There are two opinions why Regensburg is the northernmost settlement. First, its inhabitants say the ancient Ratisbon or Castra Regina looks like the northernmost Italian city. Second, the Danube reaches its northernmost point, latitude 49 next to this city. If we do not count emperor Traian’s bridge, the first permanent stone bridge was built here. There is a legend linked to its construction and also a Danubian island is connected to our story.

Zwei Meere hat der Herzog verbunden

MAGYARUL

Der 1846 eingeweihte Ludwigskanal ist als der erste Kanal auf dem Kontinent in Erinnerung geblieben, der die Verbindung zwischen der Nordsee und dem Schwarzen Meer hergestellt hat. Weniger bekannt, dass es bereits 50 Jahre vorher einen Kanal gegeben hat, durch den die Nebenflüsse der Moldau (Vltava) und die Donau verbunden waren. Seine Spuren müssen wir jedoch nicht in Bayern, sondern im Böhmerwald suchen.

Die Deutsche Donau

Immer wenn es Herbst wird, wenn im Wind schon der Geruch von welkem Laub und die feuchte Kühle von kommenden Nebeln zu ahnen sind, dann denke ich an die Donau im Süden des reiches, an ihre Auen mit dem silbrigen Glanz der Weidenbäume, an die Altwasser in den dunklen Tiefen des Erlengestrüpps und an die steilen Hänge der Wachau, zwischen denen das Wasser des Stromes nun klarer wird und schon hier und da ein wenig von dem Blau zeigt, das an den Abenden im Spätherbst alles mit seinem Leuchten erfüllt. 

Die Breg windet sich durch den Schwarzwald

Ostrov Dunaja - 2014

Združenie ornitológov Madarska,od roku 1979 každý rok zvolý druh vtáka,týmto dopomáha k zaostreniu na tieto krásne a doležité tvory v našom okolí. Od roku 2007 lesnícké združenie Maďarska,usporadúva hlasovanie o titul-Strom roka. Medzi mladšie projekty patrí napríklad hlasovanie o rybu roka,toto hlasovanie rok čo rok vyhlasuje štátne združenie rybárov. Práve kvoly týmto trom mylím podujatiam,som sa rozhodol pomocť vtáčikom,aby si lahko našli miesto na pristátie,pomocť stromom aby mohly svoje koreňe rozpusťiť a rybám aby našli svoje útočiská. Vyhlasujeme projekt s názvom ostrov roka na Dunaji.

Hlasujťe na ostrov Dunaja - 2014!

Hlavným dovodom hlasovania,je aby sme čím viac a lepšie zpoznaly naše tajuplné zákutia rieky Dunaja. Majú toťiž /podla nás/ aspoň tolko krásy a zaujímavosti ako Seychelly a podobné oblúbené destinácie. Toho roku je to druhý krát,čo toto hlasovanie zverejňujeme,snažíme sa o to,aby sme vytvorily tradíciu pre nadšencov "domácej prírody"

Minulý rok našu súťaž vyhral ostrov Kompkoto kde v priebehu tochto roka už zahájily rehabilitáciu ostrova.

V roku 2014 sú na titul Ostrov roka nominované nasledovné miesta:

Ostrov Göd (Homoksziget), Göd

Je súčasťou národného parku Duna Ipoly.

Ostrov Helemba (Helembasziget), Esztergom-Búbánatvölgy

Je ťiež súčasťou národného parku Duna-Ipoly

Ostrov Veránka, Érsekcsanád

Nachádza sa v národnom parku Duna-Dráva

survey tools

Hlasovať je možné do 31 decembra 2014.

Le pietre di Bölcske

MAGYARUL

scritto da Gergely Schell
 

Bölcske e Madocsa sono due comuni sulle sponde del Danubio, entrambi tra le città di Dunaföldvár e Paks. La ferrovia (che ai giorni d’oggi non svolge trasporto pubblico), e l’autostrada (oggigiorni meno in uso per via della strada numero 6), entrambi sono abbastanza distanti, dunque preservano l’isolamento dei villaggi. Gli storici, archeologi, antropologi, etnografici ed altri numerosi intenditori fanno tesoro di questi siti, per cui ne vale la pena di assentarsi dalla via maestra.

 

Revitalization of the Wienfluss

MAGYARUL

19th-century urban development involved the development of sewerage. Until then, the rivers were the main collectors, and the smaller streams served as channels. The Ördögárok stream in Buda, and the Rákos stream in Pest exuded unbearable stench before being eradicated. The second capital of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy partly buried, partly forced underground the putrid channels which emanated putrid stench and usually also served as garbage dumps. Few people know that at that time the capital of the Monarchy also faced similar problems. There a firm and drastic intervention was necessary because of the floods and disease risk of the Wien river, which gave the name of the city. 

The Wien river being covered, ca. 1895.

The rapid improvement of the water quality after the installation of sewerage confronted Vienna city planning with new challenges. The river is no longer considered an enemy, and they slowly take the first step to the figurative and literal rehabilitation of the Wien river. The river, which not only gave the name of the city, but during its history also defended it from the enemy.

The case of the chicken and the egg – Which Wien was before?

The name of Wien was first used in the Salzburg Yearbooks of 881, in the form “ad Uueniam” (ad Weniam), but it is not clear whether it refers to the city or to the river. In Lower Austria it is quite frequent that a settlement along the Danube is named for the local tributary river (e.g. Enns, Ybbs, Aggsbach etc.), thus historians and etymologists think it likely that Vienna was named after the Wien river.

The Wien river as the natural line of defense of Vindobona

The river had a special importance for the development and progression of Vienna. It played a strategic role in the city’s southeast line of defense. In ancient times the legionary camp of Vindobona was surrounded on two sides by the Wien river and the Ottakring creek, forming two natural ditches around the settlement. In Roman times, the ramose side-branches of the Danube created a veritable archipelago on the widening floodplain, and the Wien poured into one of these branches.

The mouth of the Wien river (right), and the city walls of Vienna in 1686

Just like in Csallóköz – the Schüttinsel to the south of Bratislava/Pozsony/Preßburg –, the main branch of the Danube in Vienna was not suitable for navigation. The Donaukanal known today started to take shape in the Middle Ages from a side branch of the Danube, where the sailors could approach the imperial city, like they did on the Moson branch of the Danube in the Hungarian section. The Wien poured into the Danube at the easternmost bastion of the city, where above its mouth it formed a section of the moat called Graben.

The river bed before regulation

Ulmer Schachtel

MAGYARUL

"Die ersten fanden den Tod,

die zweiten hatten die Not,

und die dritten erst das Brot."

Ulmer Schachtel auf dem Weg nach Plintenburg

  

A view on Pressburg

MAGYARUL

The members of the German ethnic minority ousted from Slovakia could have not found a better site for their memorial than the hill of Braunsberg, rising on the Austrian side of the “Porta Hungarica”. A particularly funny fact is that this is one of the favorite Austrian site of excursion of the inhabitants of Bratislava, a point with a great view on their capital. Those who want to take the best picture of Lamač/Lamacs/Blumenau, Devín/Dévény/Theben, the Kamzík/Zerge-hegy/Gemsenberg, or the castle hill of Bratislava/Pozsony/Pressburg, must climb up to the memorial. With many Slovaks already the name “Felvidék” (Upper Region), the historical Hungarian name of their country beats off the fuse. What will they think about the country of “Nordkarpatelnand” and its German-speaking cities?

A view on Preßburg

Lost islands of Budapest

Once a friend of mine, who is a history-geography teacher just like me, told me there was a competition in their school. One of the questions was: How many Danubian islands are there in Budapest? He told me what he tought the correct answer would be, which was an irrationally big number, and asked me if it is true. I told him: it depends. What do you call an island? 

In my opinion, island is a peace of land, which is completely surrounded by a body of water all the time. Not just a few months of the year, but the whole year. I told my friend, there are a very few islands in Budapest meeting this criteria. 

We have to wind back the clock till the dawn of written history. By the Budapest section it means the time when the first Roman legionaries settled down next to the Danuvios river. Until this time there was no human impact on the Danube valley. No dredging, no locks, no stone embankments and no bridges.

Disappearing high-water marks in Budapest

MAGYARUL

"And shall your children ask ye tomorrow  
what this stone is in your temple,  
thus shall ye say unto them:  
Let the last generation hear  

that the waters of the Danube reached this high.."  

   

The last comprehensive study on the high-water marks of Budapest was completed in 1977. György Rajna’s “Flood tables in Budapest” was published only two years later, in 1979, in the 21st volume of Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából (Studies from the Past of Budapest). This short span of time was enough to force the author to add a short addendum, that during these two years two flood tables of 1838 disappeared from two buildings in Ferencváros, and two other were demolished together with the house in Újpest. 35 years have passed since the publication of this study. What has been the fate of the carefully collected and documented tables? This is what I tried to survey. 

A nice example of the rescue of a flood table: Ferencváros, Bokréta utca 32.

The third window on the left

MAGYARUL 

Patrick Leigh Fermor has arrived exactly 80 years ago, in late january, 1934 to the Austrian town Persenbeug. After having supper in the town inn and filling his journals for the day he made a sketch of the innkeeper's daughter. And he's been talking to an old polymath aristocrat till late night. About the Danube, its fish, especially the catfish, the kraken of the Danube, about hydroelectric dams, Romans, Markomanns, archaeology, flora and fauna, about Hans, ritter of Ybbs, the Tartars, Schubert, Wagner and about the Dodo bird of Mauritius. 

  

...The others had stolen away to bed hours before. The third bottle of Langenlois was empty and we stood up too. He paused in front of a glass case in which a bright-eyed and enermous stuffed trout was swimming urgently through a tangle of tin water-weed. It's a pity you didn't go on over the hills from St. Florian,' he said. 'You would have got to the little town of Steyr, and the Enns valley' - this was the green tributary I had watched curling out of the hills opposite Mauthausen - 'It's only half a dozen miles. Schubert wrote the Trout quintet there. He was on a walking tour, like you. 

 

He whistled the tune as we strolled along the snow-covered quay, with Dick bounding ahead and sliding comically out of control on the concealed ice. The steeple of Ybbs stood clear above the roofs and the tree-tops the other side. Above the roofs of our own shore, almost inevitably, a large baroque castle soared into the starlight. 'You see the third window on the left?' the polymath asked. 'It's the room where Karl, our last emperor was born.' After a pause, he went on whistling the tune of The Trout. 'I always think of streams running down to the Danube,' he said, 'whenever I hear it...

Patrick Leigh Feromor: A Time of Gifts. On foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube.

The second inhabited island on the Danube

MAGYARUL

is situated in the town of Neuburg an der Donau, Germany. „Second” means space and not time in this case. It would be quite difficult to trace back the first inhabited island On the Danube in time. It is concievable that island had been washed away since then. In terms of space we have an easier task, because if we do not count the more or less artificial island of Regensburg, the Leopoldineninsel is the only inhabited island with the Neu-Ulmer Island on the entire German Danube section.