Mostly useless » Rivers http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge (Bertrand Russell) Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:58:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Along the rivers http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/08/26/along-the-rivers/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/08/26/along-the-rivers/#comments Sat, 26 Aug 2006 13:23:56 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/08/26/along-the-rivers/ Landscape in Scheveningen

Four thousands kilometers in thirteen days, across Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. It’s been a long and amazing trip, visiting wonderful cities, looking at breathtaking landscapes, having great meals and unfortunately a lot of rain showers. We mostly followed the path of two major central European rivers: Rhine and Meuse. Rhine (Rijn in NL) springs up in Switzerland and flows in the North Sea, traversing Germany and forming a large delta in The Netherlands after a long path of 1320 kilometers. Meuse (Maas in NL) springs up in France and runs 925 kilometers across Luxembourg and Belgium before finally draining in the same delta.

A great deal of history happened along these two rivers and in particular they have big symbolic value for Europe: they delimit the field where France and Germany fought for centuries (including two world wars) but they also merge in The Netherlands thus keeping Europe together. No wonder most of the European and international institutions are in this valley: Strasbourg, Brussels, The Hague. This is also the place where bishops used to be rulers and the Protestant Reformation developed, and the place where many renowned beers are produced.

To complete our tour we visited Geneva (again on a river, this time the Rhone) and the United Nations palace!

I’m posting more pictures and details, stay tuned!

UPDATE: here is the photoalbum

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