THE ANGLERS OF THE SAXONY STATE AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTION landed a big one back in October 2002 – a female salmon 94 centimeters long and weighing 6.7 kilograms. Along with 23 others of the same species, she was making her way up the Elbe River to the stream where she had once hatched. One of this swarm was making the strenuous journey upriver from the Atlantic for the second time. That is very unusual because adult salmon normally die after mating and laying their eggs.

The salmon is only one of the creatures making a spectacular reappearance in this river, which was formerly polluted with heavy metals and other toxic substances. Biologists are now frequently reporting freshwater lampreys, loach and even sea trout in the Elbe tributaries in Saxony and Saxony- Anhalt. "There are now 94 species splashing around in the Elbe," rejoices Heinrich Reinecke, the Head of the Committee for Prevention of Elbe Pollution. "That´s more than in the Rhine." This is an indication that the river is once again biologically intact.

It´s also something of a miracle since this eastwest flowing river has long been regarded as Europe´s biggest sewer. More than 200 sewage treatment plants now stand on the banks of the Elbe. Many of the worst industrial polluters, like the Bitterfeld chemical industry, have been closed down. Even in the river´s upper reaches in the Czech Republic, chemical manufacturers that still pump their effluent into the river are first treating it in purification plants. The success rate can be expressed in figures. Heavy metals such as mercury and toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons have more or less disappeared, and a wide range of fish and invertebrate species are once again flourishing in the river.

The big cleanup has made the river more attractive to the people living on its banks. The First international Elbe Swimmingday organized in July 2002 by Gruner + Jahr and the German Environmental Aid Organization was a huge success. Over 80,000 friends of the river celebrated the Elbe´s recovery at 55 locations in the Czech Republic and Germany. More than 5,000 swimmers plunged into the cool river water. This was an encouraging experience for Roberto Epple, one of the event´s main organizers: "If you love something, you protect it."

And there is certainly plenty to protect. From its source in the Czech Republic to its mouth at Cuxhaven, the Elbe flows through no less than five national parks and one biosphere reserve. Originating at a height of 1,384 meters in the granite mountains of the Riesengebirge in the Czech Republic at the confluence of three tiny rivulets issuing from surrounding peat bogs, the official source of the Labe (as the Czechs call the Elbe) is marked by a ring of stones. This is the unspoiled homeland of the mythical figure Rübezahl, and was declared a national park in 1963 – seven years before Germany´s first national park in the Bavarian Forest.

On the Czech-German frontier, the river cuts through the picturesque Elbsandstein mountain range. During the course of 100 million years, the river has gradually eaten its way through the 150 million-year-old sediments of the Jurassic Sea. Two Swiss painters, who worked there 200 years ago, gave it its present nickname – Bohemian-Saxon Switzerland. The painter Caspar-David Friedrich also found innumerable motifs in the region´s steep rock faces, limestone ridges and deep canyons.

The "Flusslandschaft Elbe" biosphere reserve on the border between Saxony and Lauenburg in Schleswig- Holstein is a veritable jewel of nature. A´ UNESCO World Heritage Site, it covers an area seven times as large as Lake Constance and includes features such as Europe´s largest alluvial forest and 22,000 free-standing oak trees.

This is the only place where the beaver, once native to the whole of central Europe, has survived, and it is the nursery for several species recolonization projects in other parts of Germany. Here, at the former frontier between Eastern and Western Europe, Nature has been able to retain much of its charm and character. Along the line where ideological differences separated the human population for more than 40 years, the Elbe functioned as a natural border and did not degenerate into the tamed waterway that it often became elsewhere.

The disastrous floods along the Elbe and its tributaries in the summer of 2002 once again demonstrated that rivers today need broader flood plains than was formerly the case. At the bend in the river nicknamed the Evil Place near the small town of Lenzen in Brandenburg, thousands of sandbags lying on the dike bear silent witness to the Herculean efforts of the hundreds of volunteers who saved the local population from the flood waters. To prevent it happening again, there are now plans to rededicate an area of 450 hectares of the river´s former flood plain. A new, seven-kilometer overflow dike is being erected farther away from the river and the old dike is being breached at six points to allow the annual floodwaters to spread out without causing damage. 400,000 oaks, elms and alders will be planted on the new flood plain to restore the alluvial forest that existed here until just 300 years ago. "It´s a sort of pilot project," emphasizes Tim Schwarzenberger, who is in charge of the reforestation. "It will be an opportunity to demonstrate that nature preservation, flood protection and revival of tourism can get along very well together."

The people of Dresden know all about the dangers of flooding. The inhabitants of "Florence on the Elbe" have taken great pains not to squeeze their river into a tight corset. Dresden´s Elbe meadows are unique in Europe – a largely undeveloped flood plain 35 kilometers long that is flooded when high water comes. The meadows are a favorite recreation area for the people of Dresden and the habitat of rare species such as the corncrake, kingfisher and black kite.

But it is not just the Elbe´s spectacular natural scenery that is worth discovering. Whole chapters of the world´s history have been written in towns lying on this 1,091-kilometer river running through Europe´s heartland. It was here that significant social, cultural and architectural changes were born. Martin Luther triggered the Reformation when he stuck his theses on the doors of Wittenberg´s Castle Church in 1517. The Luther Memorial in Wittenberg was officially recognized as the authentic scene of the Reformation and a cultural heritage of the human race by UNESCO in 1996 – as is the Bauhaus in Dessau, erected by Walter Gropius in 1925 and the symbol of the Bauhaus school of architecture, which introduced revolutionary ideas in architecture and urban planning between 1919 and 1933.

Another visionary creation on the banks of the Elbe is Hamburg´s Speicherstadt, erected toward the end of the 19th century near the city´s then new free port. Its seven-story, red-brick, neo-Gothic buildings remain the largest contiguous warehouse complex in the world. Like its source, the mouth of the Elbe is embedded in nature reserves.Here, the water from this great European river disperses into the North German coastal flats and the North Sea. The mouth of the Elbe is where the adult salmon collect to start their arduous journey back to the streams where they were born.