howitzer

Ive been to europe in fall...next time Im going in the summer and since I love swimming in rivers....anyone with some good experiences? favorite places..... Any lasting side effects? Any river swimming etiquette i should be aware of?

StCirq

We swim in the Dordogne all the time, often in concert with a canoe trip. There are lots of little beaches along the river, and the water is exceedingly clean. It's not half bad, swimming by beautiful villages and castles.

Ann1

I wouldn't suggest swimming in the Arno. We saw river rats in it.

ben_haines_london

I agree: it is pleasant to swim in rivers. People still swim by Chertsey Bridge (as I did 65 years ago), the Cam near Grantchester and at the Mill (as I did 45 years ago), the Avon at Barford, upstream from Stratford, and the Danube at Gyor (as I did 35 years ago), and the Nile at Juba (as I did 25 years ago, but one does need an eye open for crocodiles). The police hope you will not swim in the Thames at Blackfriars, as I did 30 years go, but the river is clean enough: your trouble is passing and unobsrervant pleasure boats.

[email protected]

rex

How cool to be in this esteemed company - - having enjoyed this quirky thing. About 15 years ago, on a jetboat trip down Hells Canyon, the group I was with was given an hour break for lunch and "play time" in the river, and I swam across the Snake River from the Oregon side to the Idaho side. It felt like this little tiny piece of crossing our continent on my own steam.

Thanks for the reminiscence.

Best wishes,

Rex
[email protected]

BATUFFOLINA

I swam in the AAR river when I was in Bern in summer. There is a place where you can get in the water and let yourself be carried by the tide. At regular intervals there are places where you can grip and get out of the river. Really lovely experience

icithecat

Can you jump in the Thames at Hampton Court with an inner tube and drift down to Greenwich?

Could be some cool views.

Surfergirl

The river that runs through Bern when I was a teen. Battuvfolina is soo right, the coolest ride ever! I think that's where the phrase "go with the flow" came from!

Marilyn

Ann1, those are not rats in the Arno. They are coypu, or so we were told. Also known in the US as nutria. Rodents yes, but technically not rats.

sheila

Lots of places in Scotland- but it can be too cold. Try the Tay at Logierait or the Lyon just below the dam

PatrickLondon

ICtheCat, the answer would be no.

Apart from the fact that you could get very cold, since it would take most of the day to get from Hampton Court from Greenwich with only your arms and the stream for power, you'd have to go through several locks to get to the tidal Thames, and you'd probably get taken out and given a severe talking-to by the lock-keepers, other river officials and the river police. You'd also be running the risk of collision with various fast boats and, on the tidal Thames, the freighters that carry the refuse downriver to the tips.

Also, for anyone thinking of swimming in the Thames, it rises and falls 20-30 feet twice a day. That's a very powerful tidal stream with all sorts of hidden undercurrents. Almost every year there are one or two people who come out of the pub on a hot evening and think a dip would be nice - they aren't seen again for a day or two, and then it isn't a pretty sight.

Please don't even think about it.

Travelnick

The Thames is much cleaner than it used to be but there are still regular reports of the disease (cannot remember the name of it) in the UK papers which is caught from taking in a bit of water and is coming from rats pee. There are certainly enough of them on the river banks. Doctors do not recommend it - perhaps Ben's immune system is pretty good! I am stunned that Ben went swimming down at Blackfriars 30 years ago - I have only seen a drunk/suicide attempt doing that. The Thames can be extremely dangerous around there with undercurrents (look at numerous deaths from one pleasure boat that sank in the 80s) and 30 years ago would not have exactly passed too many cleanliness tests in the consumer magazines.

ben_haines_london

I am afraid that the river police would take an inner tube on shore, and reprimand you for risk. As I say, you are unsafe amongst the pleasure boats.

Ben Haines

Queenie

Every August Zurich sponsors a 'Limmat swim' where you jump into the Limmat with innertube, float dowm with the current for several kilometers, then take a bus back to the start and do it all over again. Limmat goes right thru the city - its pretty cool. And the water is clean!

I know Bern does the same thing, in August too, I think.

ben_haines_london

Travelnick: You are ight: I was a schoolboy in Cairo, and built up a good immune syastem. But at Blackfriars I keot my head out of the water.

Ben Haines

icithecat

Bummer.
I thought I had come up with a new business oportunity to finance an extended stay in London.

Mr. Ben.

You grew up in Cairo? As an expat or no?

icithecat

Mr. Ben.

Sorry, Do not answer if you do not wish to.

Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me and I find myself inside the tumble dryer.

ben_haines_london

I reply gladly. I was an expat, in the days of King Farouk. My father taught anatomy there, my mother taught English, and we four children went to the English School Cairo in the suburb of Heliopolis, which is now a government school called Nasser College, still with strong English tradition. Cairo was still a splendid mix of cultures, languages and religions, not unlike the Alexandria of Cavafi (Do you know his Waiting for the Barbarians ?)

When I last visited, in 1963, after Colonel Nasser?s revolution, the school Houses were still called Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher and Grenville.

Here?s the poem: I hope you like it.

Ben Haines

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

icithecat

Thanks for replying Mr. Ben Haines.

We are a generation apart but have similarities in our upbringing.

I was in expat schools in Guyana and in South Africa.

My 'house' in my school in RSA was called 'Nash House'.

Is that a British historical name also?

ben_haines_london

I think so, but cannot be sure. For a Briton, Nash is John Nash, the eighteenth century architect. But there may be a South African Nash whom I have not heard of. What were the names of the other houses ?

Ben Haines