With a length of nearly 1100 kilometres and with a catchment area of 150,000 square kilometres, the Elbe is the third largest stream in Central Europe and population area for some 14 million people.

The Elbe has become a symbol! Until shortly, the inner-German border with a rigorous water pollution, the Elbe now becomes a model region. The water becomes clear again in an impressive river landscape, salmon and beaver return and the largest biosphere reserve in Central Europe has emerged. The life-determining stream with its uncurbed high water, the continuously changing landscape, the cornucopia of historic sites and events, the land of storks, eagles and cranes still offers another, mostly unexpected world of life: Because the real life in the large stream is below the water surface. Hidden to the eye of men; at the bottom of the sand stream, in the shallow waters of the flooded meadows or in the headwaters of the faraway mountains of the Riesengebirge. This is the habitat of bizarre creatures with original names, travellers around the world and natives, large and small wonders can be discovered here.