Another river?

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had missed the moment when we had left the Rhine river and gotten on the Main (now that i have heard it a hundred times I can say that it is pronounced closer to Mine). We did get to see and photograph at Koblenz where the Mosel joined into the Rhine.

So yesterday at Bamberg the navigable portion of the Main river ended and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal began. I had commented the Main was looking a lot like a canal. The reason was that the word "Main" is derived from an ancient word that means snake. Commercial ships don't like to follow circuitous routes so someone (government or canal company?) had come in and created little sections of canals that straightened out the snake.

But now it is all canal. And with the canal comes the locks.

We saw lots of buildings from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Bamberg. But I was intrigued to see an ancient road reconstruction project. It was only 60 or 70 meters in length but, since it was all being done by hand, each little section showed how the subbase of native materials was prepared, how a thick base of compactable imported materials were added and then almost a foot of concrete. All this to get ready for the cobble stones. Certainly intended to last a long time.