"Tidenkieker"

The Tidenkieker sets off on the river Elbe from Stade or Krautsand and offers a unique kind of nature experience that makes you feel like you’re on holiday and allows you to forget your everyday worries. Get out on the Elbe, let the wind blow through your hair and immerse yourself in the unique world of the maritime river landscape.

The Tidenkieker departs from the Krautsand jetty under the name ‘Waterkant’, a Plattdeutsch word for the North sea coast, to sail down the river towards Wischhafen at low tide. Passing the Brammer sandbank and the internationally significant Allwörden outer dyke nature reserve, the boat returns to the Krautsand jetty with a view of the town of Glückstadt in Schleswig-Holstein along the Rhinplate nature reserve.

Directly from Stade’s historic town centre down the river Schwinge and across the Elbe: the ‘Paradise among the reeds’ tour takes you past impressive container ships into what used to be Europe’s largest freshwater mudflats, the Haseldorfer Binnenelbe. A trip through the realm of reed warblers and white-tailed eagles and a stopover on the Elbe island of Pagensand are possible in good water and weather conditions.

The “Island Worlds” tour takes you to quiet bays and wide beaches. There are 12 islands in the Elbe between Hamburg and the North Sea. Krautsand, where the ‘Island Worlds’ tideboat tour starts, was still in the middle of the river in 1575. The shallow draught of the Tidenkieker makes it possible to manoeuvre close to the shallow beaches along the river and allow a detour into the tributary rivers of the Elbe.

The tides, the mighty pulse of the sea, characterise the landscape on the Lower Elbe. Thousands of hobby skippers, captains of huge container ships and the Elbe fishermen on their cutters are guided by the tides that people here call the “Ebbe” (low tide) and “Flut” (high tide). From aboard the flat-bottomed ship Tidenkieker, you can experience this unique tidal landscape up close in the company of Lower Elbe experts.

Route changes are possible depending on water and weather conditions.