Part 2 of the report can be found here!
The cars continue to roll over the lift bridge in Rybina. It's just before 3 p.m. It should be opening for shipping, but there is no sign of the bridge keeper. Instead, the meadow next door is black with people: Muscle-bound warriors engage in a wild show fight to great applause. The whole thing is a tribute to the Polish King Kazimierz IV. Exactly 561 years ago to the day, he sent the Teutonic Knights' fleet to the fish in the Vistula Lagoon in a holy alliance with the Prussian League of Cities. And thus heralded the end of the power-hungry knights in north-east Poland.
Start on the Szkarpawa
3 p.m. sharp: the bridge keeper relieves us of all doubts at the push of a button. Jochen at the wheel of our Vistula Cruiser 30 S accelerates towards the Vistula Lagoon. The "battle noise" in the stern water slowly dies down. A polder landscape rises up in front of us that would do credit to the colour boxes of Vincent van Gogh or Jan van Goyen. All that's missing are the windmills, I think to myself, walk to the bow and enjoy the rippling Szkarpawa (Vistula) with its dense reed banks and horizonless wetlands.
"If you want to buy fresh fish," Łukasz recommended when we picked up the boat in Rybina, "then moor at Tawerna Cicha Przystań. And ask for Zybigniew. He's a fisherman and goes out on the lagoon almost every day."
"Dzień dobry, good afternoon," the 70-year-old greets us and asks what we want. Salmon, eel, zander, flounder and pike. "Everything," he assures us, "caught yesterday." We decide on zander ... It's actually a freshwater fish, but the marginal salt content of the Vistula Lagoon is no problem for the scallywag. We try Zybigniew's fish soup, then it's time to say goodbye. We want to be in Elbląg (Elbing) before nightfall.
Water lilies on the Nogat
Twenty minutes later, the Nogat gurgles under the keel. With every kilometre upstream, the carpets of water lilies on the water get bigger. "I hope none of it gets into the propeller. Or into the cooling system," Jochen muses. The Teutonic Knights would probably have laughed wearily at this worry 750 years ago.
Around 30 kilometres below the Kanał Jagielloński (Jagiellonian Canal), they built what is now the largest castle in the world in terms of area from the marshy ground in record time. The mighty fortress colossus was named after its patron saint: Marienburg (Polish: Malbork) and was ennobled by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997.
Only a short time in Elbląg
7 p.m.: The Kanał Jagielloński lies in the Achterwasser, we have the Elbląg (Elbing) under the bow, have passed the industrial quarter of the city of the same name with 110,000 inhabitants and have managed to get a spot on the old town quay of the former Hanseatic city with the last light from the cans. I quickly get the key for the shore power box from the bridge keeper. Then we are already sitting in the Restauracja Tutti Santi and savouring the expertise of the Italo-Polish kitchen team.
There isn't much time for Elbląg the rest of the day. A short stroll through the beautifully restored old town, breakfast in a lovely café right next to the town hall, then the Jezioro Drużno (Lake Drava), which is around ten kilometres long and up to two kilometres wide, is calling.
One hundred metres difference in altitude
As Neptune and all the inhabitants of this nature conservation idyll would have it, we get lost in the tangle of reeds. Our floating holiday flat doesn't have a chart plotter, so we take out our tablet, call up the sat nav app and turn the boat on the much-quoted plate. After just under an hour, the excursion steamer "Ostróda" comes towards us. What's that?" asks Jochen with a frown, pointing to the ship's dimensions on the white lady's helm. "25 metres long. 3.20 metres wide. A pretty unusual ratio."
Łukasz greets us at the jetty in Całuny: "Cześć! Hello!" He wants to help and advise us on the way up to the so-called Oberland and thus to the Eylau Lake District (Polish: Pojezierze Iławskie). "The lakes," he points to the map, "are around 100 metres above sea level." While parts of the Vistula delta lie below sea level, the last ice age 20 kilometres south-east of Elbląg has shaped a gently undulating hilly landscape interspersed with dense forests, glistening pearls of water and fertile farmland.
Pine trunks to the Baltic coast
For the accountants of the Prussian kings, this part of the Baltic Ridge was a kind of agricultural money-printing machine. The pine trees around the village of Tabórz were particularly profitable. Their long, straight, extremely strong and flexible trunks had made a name for themselves in the construction of sailing ship masts throughout Europe.
But how were these up to 40-metre-high blockbusters to be delivered cheaply and efficiently to the shipyards on the Atlantic or Mediterranean? Depending on the water level of the Drwęca and Vistula (Polish: Wisła) rivers, transport to the port of Gdansk took one to three months. Rapids, reefs and shallows often turned the precious cargo into kindling.
The Oberland Canal
In short, the Oberland needed a navigable freight route to the Baltic Sea. As 100 metres of elevation would have required around 30 chamber locks according to the state of the art at the time - which was too expensive for the crowned heads in Berlin to build - the Prussian engineer and hydraulic engineer Georg Jakob Steenke came up with an ingenious idea.
Instead of an almost endless chain of lock chambers, he lined up five ramps between 350 and 550 metres long and 13 to 24.5 metres high over a distance of ten kilometres, known as Rollbergs, created a water basin above and below each Rollberg and connected them with railway tracks. Depending on the direction of travel, the ships either steamed into the upper or lower basin into a kind of open goods wagon, the rolling wagon, and were then pulled up or lowered down the mountain piggybacked by a cable winch. Once arrived, the ships continued their journey to the next Rollberg under their own power.
Our first Rollberg
After 16 years of construction, the marvel was put into operation in 1860, initially with four furling humps and a lock. In 1873, the fifth furling hump was completed and the transport of the sailing mast pines down to the Baltic Sea was only a matter of two to three days.
"Ready to slip," announces Łukasz. Our Vistula Cruiser is lashed down in the trolley. I ring a small bell to signal to the mountain station that we are ready to go. Powerful guide wheels take hold, the steel towing cable tightens, our boat is pulled out of the lower basin, soon has dry land under its keel and, after a few minutes of sailing 14 metres higher, dives back into its original element.
Buczyniec: arrived at the top
Three hours later, the small canal museum in Buczyniec is the fifth and final "lock". "So," asks Łukasz, "what do you think of it?" - "Top!", we reply. Łukasz grins. "It's not for nothing," he says, adding that readers of the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita have named the rolling hills one of the seven wonders of the Polish world. He says so, recommends the Buczyniec jetty as a place to stay overnight and says goodbye.
The quay comes to life at 8 o'clock sharp. The crews of the excursion steamers are getting their ships ready. In just over an hour, the first passengers arrive, board the sun deck and enthusiastically capture the Rollberg spectacle down to Elbląg on film. After a quick coffee, we set off in the opposite direction.
The Oberland lies ahead of us
After around 15 kilometres along narrow canals flanked by meadows and dense forests, we now sit on the terrace of the Hotel Folwark Karczemka and have breakfast with a view of the 440-hectare Jezioro Piniewo. The hotel used to be a farm which, the waiter tells us, occasionally catered for a certain Immanuel Kant.
Is it true? Kant was born "only" 100 kilometres from here in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). He also worked as a tutor in the neighbouring village. There he taught the sons of the Prussian colonel Friedrich von Hülsen the educational content befitting his rank. The greatest philosopher of modern times, as he was called, died on 12 February 1804, but did this farmstead even exist during his lifetime? "Kto wie", the Poles would say, "who knows!"
Part 2 of the report can be found here!
