Middle-Earth (Specialty) Tours

The Anduin River Cruise
Anduin the Great begins in the north of Middle-earth, where it is fed by two streams which flow down from the Grey Mountains: Langwell and Greylin. Near the confluence of these rivers lie the ruins of Framsburg, a Second Age city of the Éothéod. These are the people who eventually became the Rohirrim. Unfortunately, this area was laid waste by Cold Drakes from the Northern Waste, then colonized by orcs. By the time of The Hobbit, nearby Mount Gundabad had become the major orc stronghold in Middle-Earth.
Framsburg, by Rob Alexander
Traveling south along the Anduin, we soon come to the Carrock and Beorn's home.

The Carrock, by Alan Lee		 But cropping out of the ground, right in the path of the stream which looped itself about it, was a great rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some giant among giants.
    Quickly now to the top of this rock the eagles swooped one by one and set down their passengers...
    There was a flat space on the top of the hill of stone and a well worn path with many steps leading down it to the river, across which a ford of huge flat stones led to the grass-land beyond the stream. There was a little cave (a wholesome one with a pebbly floor) at the foot of the steps and near the end of the stony ford.....
    [Gandalf, planning to introduce the hobbit and Dwarves to Beorn, says] 'Very few people live in these parts, unless they have come here since I was last down this way, which is some years ago. But there is somebody that I know of, who lives not far away. That Somebody made the steps on the great rock--the Carrock, I believe he calls it.' --The Hobbit, "Queer Lodgings"
Below the Carrock is the Old Ford, where the Great East Road crosses over into Mirkwood. Radagast's home, Rhosgobel, is nearby.
Next we come to a place which would be quite unremarkable if two of the most significant events of the Third Age hadn't taken place there: the Gladden Fields.
But the Ring was lost. It fell into the Great River, Anduin, and vanished. For Isildur was marching north along the east banks of the River, and near the Gladden Fields he was waylaid by the Orcs of the Mountains, and almost all his folk were slain. He leaped into the waters, but the Ring slipped from his finger as he swam, and then the Orcs saw him and killed him with arrows. --FotR, "The Shadow of the Past"
Deagol Finds the One Ring,
by Ted Nasmith

The Gladden Fields,
by Anke-Katrin Eiszmann
image from the 2nd commercial, available at the official movie site
And behold! When [Déagol] washed the mud away, there in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring; and it shone and glittered in the sun, so that his heart was glad. But Sméagol had been watching him from behind a tree, and as Déagol gloated over the ring, Sméagol came softly up behind. --FotR, "The Shadow of the Past"
Parallel with the lower edge of Mirkwood, the River Nimrodel joins the Anduin from Lórien. Next comes the Limlight, the smaller of the two rivers which flow out of Fangorn Forest. And now we come to a rather complicated area, topographically speaking.
As you go down to the river,' [Celeborn] said, 'you will find that the trees will fail, and you will come to a barren country. There the River flows in stony vales amid the high moors, until at last after many leagues it comes to the tall island of the Tindrock, that we call Tol Brandir. There it casts its great arms about the steep shores of the isle, and falls then with a great noise and smoke over the cataracts of Rauros down into the Nindalf, the Wetwang as it is called in your tongue. That is a wide region of sluggish fen where the stream becomes tortuous and much divided....About that stream, on this side of the Great River, lies Rohan. On the further side are the Emyn Muil. The wind blows from the east there, for they look out, over the Dead Marshes and the no-man lands to Cirith Gorgor and the black gates of Mordor. --FotR, "Farewell to Lorien"

The Argonath, by Ted Nasmith
image from a FotR TV commerical
The Falls of Rauros, by Ted Nasmith

Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown. Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom. --FotR, "The Great River"

We have now arrived in the vast realm of Gondor and will soon sail past the great city of Minas Tirith.

Minas Tirith, by Roger Garland

At its nearest point the wall was little more than one league from the City, and that was south-eastward. There Anduin, going in a wide knee about the hills of Emyn Arnen in South Ithilien, bent sharply west, and the out-wall rose upon its very brink; and beneath it lay the quays and landings of the Harlond for craft that came upstream from the southern fiefs. --RotK, "Minas Tirith"
The Ruins of Osgiliath,
by Alan Lee
Across the River from Minas Tirith is Osgiliath, which once held the thrones of both Isildur and Anárion. The "king recrowned" found by Frodo, Sam and Gollum might have been a statue of of one of the brothers.

The chief city of the southern realm was Osgiliath, through the midst of which the Great River flowed; and the Númenorians built there a great bridge, upon which there were towers and houses of stone wonderful to behold, and tall ships came up out of the sea to the quays of the city. --The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"


Pelargir, by Roger Garland		 At Pelargir, site of Aragorn's victory over the Corsairs of Umbar, the River spreads out into a delta called the Ethir Anduin and at last sweeps out to sea. But as it does so it carries with it a final story, pieced together by Christopher Tolkien from his father's notes. Evil Queen Berúthiel was the consort of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor. She used her famous cats, mentioned by Aragorn in FotR, as spies against her enemies:

Berúthiel lived in the King's House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir "upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin"....[H]er name was erased from the Book of the Kings [and] King Tarannon had her set on a ship alone with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow. --Unfinished Tales, "The Istari," footnote #7

For more on the Nen Hithoel section of Anduin, click here

Full-size versions of these pictures are on display at Rolozo Tolkien and the official LotR movie site.