Welcome to river cruising in Europe, where
the experience is unlike any other you’ve ever encountered. Floating
down the Moselle River toward Germany’s border with Luxembourg and
France, Peter Deilmann River Cruises’ Heidelberg is passing under
a bridge that requires not only all tables and deck chairs to be removed
from the Sun Deck but also the side railings and even the captain’s
pilot house to be lowered so that they are flush with the upper deck.
 Fortunately,
the side railings are hinged, so that they can be folded down, and the
pilot house is designed so that it mechanically lowers below deck. With
the bridge only 100 yards away, I squeeze my head through a canopy draped
over the stairwell to the Sun Deck, completely flush except for the captain’s
bald crown poking above the deck from the pilot house. We make it under
the bridge with only two inches to spare. “The captain has been
with us a very long time,” Wilhelm Bahrs, Heidelberg’s affable
hotel manager, jokes later on. When I don’t get the joke, he rubs
his head as if to indicate that the low bridges have scraped the captain’s
noggin once too often.
Crossing The Divide
Cruising Europe’s rivers is a relatively new phenomenon that only
began to make great strides following the completion of the Main-Danube
Canal in 1992. That was the year that a manmade channel crossed the Franconian
Alps to link the Main and Danube rivers. The completion of the canal meant
that river cruisers could travel, via locks, from the North Sea to the
Black Sea, opening up 2,200 miles of river through 13 countries, and allowing
itineraries from Amsterdam to Budapest.
Between those two cities, ships cross Europe’s Continental Divide,
which requires a series of locks to lift the vessels 1,400 feet above
sea level. The locks, slightly under 40 feet wide, restrict the width
of river cruisers, which are essentially barges with an integrated hotel
above. Though there are 100 or more ships operating on European rivers,
only about 60 have been introduced since the opening of the Canal, and
of those, only about 30 are upper-end modern ships, according to Rudi
Schreiner, president of California-based Amadeus Waterways, founded in
2002.
Night and Day
Some river cruise itineraries allow ships to overnight in ports and cruise
during the day; others require that ships cruise during the night and
tie up in port during the day. Heidelberg, for example, transited the
Rhine and Moselle rivers during the day, passing beautiful countryside
dotted with vineyards, ancient castles and small towns. The ship remained
docked in charming villages overnight. On the Danube this past December,
Amadeus Waterways’ Amadagio cruised between destinations during
the night and spent much of the daylight hours docked in cities and towns.
 Both
approaches allow for dinners ashore and late-evening strolls into town.
And both beat motorcoach tours of Europe hands down. On river cruisers,
you pack and unpack only once; there’s no need to get up at unspeakable
hours in the morning to board a bus for the next destination. Your hotel
floats along with you.
First-time river cruisers typically begin with the Danube, Schreiner
says. “The Rhine River seems to be the one river that is mentioned
worldwide,” he says, “but the majority of cruises in Europe
actually take place on the Danube.”
You may be familiar with the names of some of the cities along the Danube:
Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; and Nuremberg, Germany (on the Main
River). “With the Moselle and Rhine river towns, however, even some
Europeans are not familiar with the names,” Schreiner says. “So
the typical first-time cruiser goes on the Danube, sees the beauty there,
then wants to go on other rivers: the Moselle, the lower Danube, and to
Holland and Belgium for tulip cruises in the spring.”
For the avid cruiser who loves Europe, river cruising is a must-do experience.
Step ashore in fairy tale towns, immerse yourself in contemporary culture
and learn something about the history of the towns along the Continent’s
greatest rivers — all from the comfort of your floating hotel. |
