Our journey down the Rhine presented featured both a rapid progression of riparian cities and the relaxed intimacy of a small ship with endless opportunities for conversation. (My favorite new buzz-word is riparian—of or relating to the riverbank.)

Travel is a beguiling perfume. The common denominator, in this case, was the Rhine River. (And yes, you can write Rhein, Rhine, or Rjin or Rhin—they’re all correct.) People cruise the Rhine for many reasons. My reason, of course, was the opportunity to work again as a speaker for The Smithsonian. Beyond that, there was a kaleidoscope of reasons that brought people together on the Viking Sun. An American grandmother brought her teenaged granddaughter to feed the girl’s interest in history; a gentleman from England wanted to see the place he where, as a child, he listened to radio reports of the 1945 Allied crossing at Remagen. Another Australian couple was honeymooning, and what could be more romantic than the Rhine?

This trip opened new topics for me, included a big dose of Rhine Eco-history. Eco-history a trendy term, but a helpful one. I used to say that my hardest preparation for a talk was a lecture I gave on Bob Marley (during an earlier Smithsonian trip to the Caribbean). But now I’m thinking Marley got trumped by the re-engineering of the Rhine River.

It was called “river rectification” and this massive engineering feat began in 1817 after the Congress of Vienna had redrawn Europe. Everyone from Charlemagne on had dreamed about turning the oxbows, rivulets, marshes of the Rhine into a single shipping channel, but it took Johann Gottfried Tulla (1770-1828) and a string of 19th-century engineers to do it. The commercial gain was enormous as was the strengthening of European diplomacy; but the topographical changes brought destruction to many communities, plus the ecological damage was undeniable by end of the 19th century.

I particularly appreciated a book by University of California Professor Mark Cioc (The Rhine River: An Eco-History 1815-2000): it was an eye-opener for me. It may be the only time I will ever carry statistics about shad count and Ruhr coal production in my head. But it was fascinating to learn about.

But my favorite story from the whole trip may have been a legend I learned from Medieval Cologne. I’ll tell it next time, okay?