Dusseldorf

I am in Dusseldorf yesterday for meetings, which means a 5AM wake-up and 6:40AM flight from Heathrow. No glamour at that hour, boy. The good news is that A) the sun is up before me and B) no traffic. I could sacrifice a few hours of sleep for this every day. I have several hours to kick around with my colleague Martin and here we are by the Rhine making calls/ answering blackberry emails. Since I cannot say one thing about the river to my Swiss companion, here is what I learn from a few websites:

The Rhine is one of the longest (and most important) rivers in Europe. It runs for over 1,320 miles (about the distance of the KKH) from its source in the Swiss Alps, issuing from the Rheinwaldhorn Glacier, 3,353 meters above seal level. The Rhine flows through six countries - Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France and the Netherlands before flowing in the North Sea at Rotterdam.

The river begins as a small stream and gathers speed and volume on its way to Lake Constance, which provides drinking water for most of Southern Germany. As it continues to wind its way to the North sea, the Rhine passes through the industrial town, Basel, where it becomes a major transport route through Europe moving goods and raw materials by ship. By here, it is a wide river. As the Rhine enters Germany, it becomes the border between GD and France. Through the Rhine Gorge, the landscape changes again as the river narrows to form a steep side-valley filled with vineyards and castles overlooking the river. Finally the Rhine reaches the Netherlands, a completely flat country, where it joins several other rivers on its final journey to Rotterdam and the North sea.

The River was hopelessly polluted by the mid-20th century and in 1986 a chemical factory fire spilled pollution into the river for ten days, travelling its length and into the North Sea (this seems like a trifle to the Gulf's BP misery). In response, the Rhine Action Programme developed and, today, many natural species have returned including the salmon which once thrived here and nearly gone.