The Fulda is one of those confusing rivers — like the Rhine or the Meuse — that flow more or less from south to north, so that upstream is at the bottom of the map and downstream is at the top. This means that if you are in Kassel and want to go to Bad Hersfeld, you don’t know whether to say you are going up to Bad Hersfeld because it’s upstream or down to Bad Hersfeld because it’s lower on the map.
This confusion of course has more to do with our map-making conventions than with the river, since the river was here before we were.
The Fulda River in Kassel
The regional bicycle route R1 follows the Fulda River for almost its entire length.
About 32 kilometers downstream from Kassel the Fulda joins with the Werra to form the Weser, which eventually flows into the North Sea near Bremerhaven.
Pickaxe by the Fulda River in Kassel
This pickaxe is one of several artworks on display on the banks of the Fulda River in Kassel, left over from one of the previous Documenta exhibitions of modern art.
The wire bridge (Drahtbrücke) over the Fulda River in Kassel
My photos in this post are from 2005. I revised the text in 2021.
See more posts on Kassel, Germany.
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Leslie
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A bit like the River Trent over here, which basically turns north from Nottingham and flows into the Humber. So again, you go up to go downstream.
Most of the rivers in the USA flow north to south so the maps and the flow of the river coincide. It sounds like Europe is different in having several major rivers that flow south to north. It would be a little bit interesting to know how natives of the area refer to travel on the south to north rivers. Do they say “up” when it is upstream?
I don’t know about other languages, but in German and French they don’t have to specify.
I know what you mean about the river being confusing when it flows in the opposite direction to the way our brain works