I’ve been hosting and writing about barge trips in France since 2012 — more than a dozen voyages on canals and rivers that most travelers never see. Barges carry a maximum of 22 passengers. The crew knows your name on the first day. The cuisine rivals Michelin-starred restaurants. And the pace — never more than walking speed — forces a kind of attention that changes how you experience a place.

On this page, you’ll find my favorite barge cruises in France from 2026 back through 2012, across Alsace, Burgundy, the Camargue, the Oise, the Petit-Seine, and more. Whether you’re a first-time barger or a veteran of the canals, there’s something here to inspire your next slow journey through France.

If you’d like to join me on a future trip, see my 2026 hosted barge trips and 2027 hosted barge trips. If I can help you plan your own, please click on Get My Help.

1. CroisiEurope Daniele — Besançon to Dijon via the Doubs & Burgundy Canal

Cruised April 2026

The Daniele’s first move is unexpected. Rather than turning west into the open Doubs, the barge noses toward the base of the Citadelle — and then into it. A tunnel cut through the limestone bluff beneath Vauban’s fortress draws you in, lit and narrow, stone walls close on both sides. Then daylight again, and the Doubs opening up beyond. This is how barge travel begins from Besançon. Not with a departure, exactly. More like a passage.

Seven days, 52 miles, three waterways: the Doubs giving way to the Saône, the Saône to the Burgundy Canal. The Daniele carries 22 passengers and a crew of six — small enough that you know everyone’s name within the first hour, and navigate waterways that river cruise ships can’t reach. We had seven consecutive days of spring sunshine. Cruise manager Christophe ran the operation with the particular skill of someone who has mastered the balance between structure and ease. Dining steward Margo made the room warmer simply by being in it. Laszlo, who kept cabins refreshed, delivered humor with the timing of someone who missed a calling on the stage. He told us at the end of the week that we had consumed 80 bottles of wine — “but we emptied each one with respect.”

At the end of the week, nearly every guest went to hug Margo goodbye. That tells you what you need to know.

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2. CroisiEurope — Barging Through Alsace, Strasbourg to Lagarde

Cruised May 2025

There’s a quiet kind of joy that comes from floating through France at walking speed. That’s what we experienced on this CroisiEurope barge cruise through Alsace — drifting from Strasbourg to Lagarde over the course of a week, covering just 65 miles with 41 locks along the way. This isn’t a trip for checking boxes or racing between tourist sites. It’s a trip for lingering: over meals, conversations, and canal-side strolls or cycling.

The towpaths are one of Alsace’s great pleasures. At each lock, guests can hop off and walk or cycle to the next stop, with the barge gliding alongside. Storks, vineyards, half-timbered villages, and the particular light of Alsace at the end of the day. Cruise manager Zsuzsi kept the energy light. Chef Yves turned out multi-course meals that would impress a Parisian. One evening we gave Yves a night off and gathered at a local winstub for tarte flambée — Alsace’s answer to pizza, thin and crisp and perfect with a glass of local white or beer. Mónika in the dining room had us laughing at every meal.

I build in two or three nights in Strasbourg before every Alsace barge — the city is too lovely to rush through. I’ll be hosting this trip again in October 2026. See 2026 Hosted Barge Trips.

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3. CroisiEurope Anne-Marie — The Camargue, Sète to Arles

Cruised October 2025

The Camargue is one of Europe’s great wild places — a vast, low-lying delta where the Rhône splits before meeting the Mediterranean. White horses roam freely on open plains. Black bulls graze across salt flats. Pink flamingos feed in shallow pools. And the light changes color with the hour in ways that explain why painters have been drawn here for centuries.

We experienced all of this from the canals, on CroisiEurope’s Anne-Marie, gliding along narrow waterways bordered by levees with wide lagoons stretching out on either side. France few travelers ever see, at five miles an hour, close enough to the waterline to hear birds in the reeds. We paired this barge trip with a week on AmaWaterways’ AmaKristina on the Rhône afterward — and when I asked the group which they preferred, no one could decide. Both were right, just different.

I’ll be hosting the Camargue trip again in October 2026. See 2026 Hosted Barge Trips.

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4. CroisiEurope Raymonde — The Oise River, Paris to Compiègne

Cruised May 2024

If there was a moment that defined our seven days on the Oise, it was the last night of the trip. Charlène, our young Portuguese dining steward who had served us three meals a day and countless glasses of wine all week, slipped away after dinner, changed clothes, and came back to the dining room in a black frock with embroidered floral designs. She took the stage, held a glass of port, and performed Fado — a style of Portuguese music that in her version expressed the sadness of loved ones leaving. By the time she finished, people across the room were dabbing their eyes with napkins.

That’s what CroisiEurope’s barge trips are. Living rooms, not floating hotels. We started moored beneath the Eiffel Tower with a picture-perfect view, then moved through Bougival — where Monet painted and Joséphine de Beauharnais lived at Malmaison — then overnighted in Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent his final two months painting 70 canvases before his death at 37. We learned to make Chantilly cream at the Château de Chantilly. We visited Compiègne, where Joan of Arc was captured. Eleven locks over 121 miles — unhurried, layered with history, impossible to replicate on a larger vessel.

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5. CroisiEurope Daniele — Back-to-Back Barging in Burgundy

Cruised April 2023

Two weeks, two routes, one barge. In April 2023 I did back-to-back trips on CroisiEurope’s Daniele through Burgundy — week one from Besançon to Dijon via the Doubs river and canal, week two from Dijon toward the Saône on the Burgundy Canal. The same barge, a new group of guests, and Burgundy continuing to reveal itself at walking speed across both of them.

The details from these two weeks stay with me. Giant plane trees lining the canal on the approach to Dole, perfectly framing the barge as she motored toward the lock. Dole itself — canals, ancient limestone, a Roman bridge from the 12th century, the city’s symbol a perched cat. Chef Armand barbecuing on the front deck in Saint-Jean-de-Losne while we played pétanque on the quay, a light Provençal rosé poured as the sun sank into the Saône. Captain Fanny threading the Daniele through locks so tight the barge barely cleared the walls on either side. And on the last evening, the whole group gathered in the lounge singing What a Wonderful Life to Louis Armstrong from an iPad — with Armand, they said, quietly wiping tears from his eyes.

The back-to-back format changed something. By week two, the canal had stopped feeling like an escape and started feeling like the natural state of things. I’ve done this route since — on the Daniele again in 2026 — and it keeps giving.

Read week one →    Read week two →

6. CroisiEurope Anne-Marie — Sète to Arles through the Camargue

Cruised September 2018

My first time through the Camargue on the Anne-Marie — a route I’ve now done multiple times and keep returning to. The canals that thread through this region are narrow and low-lying, hemmed in by levees with vast saltwater lagoons stretching to the horizon. The landscape is unlike anywhere else in France: raw, flat, luminous, full of birds.

This trip introduced me to a style of travel I hadn’t experienced before — barge travel through wetlands rather than the wooded canal corridors of Burgundy or Alsace. The Camargue requires a different kind of attention. It gives you space rather than density, silence rather than charm. I left wanting to come back. I have.

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7. CroisiEurope Raymonde — France’s Petit-Seine & Yonne Rivers

Cruised September 2017

In September 2017 I hosted my first trip on the Raymonde along France’s Petit-Seine and Yonne rivers — a route that moves through the backwaters southeast of Paris, past villages that don’t appear on tourist itineraries, through locks that require the barge to slow to a near stop while the world adjusts around it.

Barge travel ranks among my favorite forms of travel for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the intimate size of the vessel itself. On a 22-passenger barge, the group becomes its own small world within a few hours of departure. Meals run long. Conversations go deep. The banks of the river slide past the windows and no one is in a hurry to get anywhere.

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8. CroisiEurope Anne-Marie — South of France, Arles to Sète

Cruised July 2015

My first trip on the Anne-Marie, and the cruise that turned me into a committed barge traveler. Starting in Arles — where Roman amphitheaters still stand above medieval streets — and ending in Sète on the Mediterranean coast, the route passes through the Canal du Rhône à Sète, skirting the edge of the Camargue and crossing the vast Étang de Thau lagoon with its oyster farms and flamingo-dotted shores.

What I remember most from this first trip is the dawning realization that barge travel isn’t a slower version of river cruising — it’s a fundamentally different thing. The scale is different. The intimacy is different. The relationship between the vessel and the landscape is different. You are not passing through France. You are inside it.

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9. European Waterways Panache — Alsace & Lorraine

Cruised August 2012

European Waterways operates a fleet of luxury hotel barges across France and Europe, and Panache was my introduction to the company. Cruising through Alsace and Lorraine — a region where French and German cultures have overlapped for centuries — the barge moved through a landscape of hop fields, fortified villages, and the Canal de la Marne au Rhin with its remarkable engineering: locks, tunnels, and the famous inclined plane at Saint-Louis-Arzviller, a boat lift that raises or lowers vessels nearly 45 meters in minutes.

European Waterways’ barges are smaller and more boutique than CroisiEurope’s — typically 8 to 12 guests — and the experience is correspondingly more intimate. Worth knowing about for travelers who want the smallest possible group size. European Waterways still operates today.

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10. French Country Waterways Horizon II — Burgundy Canal

Cruised June 2012

French Country Waterways operates some of the most luxurious small barges in France — typically six guests, fully crewed, with a level of personal attention that few travel experiences can match. Horizon II on the Burgundy Canal was my first exposure to this style of ultra-small-group barging, and it set a high bar.

The Burgundy Canal is one of France’s most beautiful waterways — tree-lined, lock-dotted, passing through some of the great wine villages of the Côte d’Or. At six guests, you have the vessel essentially to yourselves. The chef cooks to your preferences. The itinerary flexes around the group’s interests. It is the most intimate form of water travel I know of, and French Country Waterways is still operating today for those who want it.

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Our most recent five weeks in Europe began and ended in Paris — with a barge cruise through Burgundy, a river cruise down the Saône, and a walk along the Camino Francés — and an unexpected ending.

We arrived in Paris with four nights to shake off the flight. By the second morning, Marucia and I were beginning to feel ourselves again — moving through the city with an ease that comes when you’re not racing to a departure.

Paris First

We made our way to Montmartre in the grey afternoon light on that first day, stopped to admire Le Lapin Agile and the garden in early-spring bloom on Rue St. Vincent. After a few hours of walking, we found a café for dinner and returned to our hotel at 8 p.m. feeling victorious. The victory was simply that we stayed awake until dark, and we’d seen a bit of this lovely city. See Paris: A Soft Landing Before Burgundy

A few days later, we and several others in our group took the train to Besançon, and the trip proper began — but only after two days of exploring a city that is often overlooked by travelers. See my story: Besançon: Where Our Barge Through Burgundy Begins

The Water: Two Weeks Afloat

What followed was two weeks on the water — two different kinds of water travel that together make the case for why river cruising has become what it has.

The first week was a barge cruise with CroisiEurope aboard the Daniele, moving from Besançon to Dijon through the Doubs River and the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. Barge travel is quieter and less busy than river cruising. The canals are narrow; the locks are intimate; the boat eases along at walking pace. It is, in the best possible sense, slow. See my story: Slow Water: Seven Days On CroisiEurope’s Daniele

The second week was a river cruise aboard AmaWaterways’ AmaCello — a different pace entirely. This was the Flavors of Burgundy itinerary, sailing the Saône from Lyon to Dijon. We began with a beautiful evening cruise through Lyon. The days that followed were gorgeous and filled with excursions to chateaux, vineyards and attractions. See my story: A Week On The Saône Aboard AmaWaterways’ AmaCello

Two weeks on the water. Foie gras, côtes du rhône, canal locks, cathedral towns, good cheese eaten with wine on the top deck as the sun began to give way to nightfall. Even so, three weeks into our indulgent travel, we began to yearn for the penance we had planned, which was to walk it off over the next two weeks.

The Plan: Undoing the Damage

We disembarked at Chalon-sur-Saône, took the TGV to Lyon, and spent one lovely night at the Hôtel Silky — pitching camp in a great location at a reasonable rate. We spent the afternoon and evening exploring Lyon, a city that we’ve visited many times and can never quite get enough of it.

In Vieux Lyon, Europe’s largest Renaissance quarter, the cobblestones lead somewhere worth going — a candlelit bouchon where we enjoyed a divine dinner, a sun-warmed lane, a flower shop with a a teal bike out front. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

The next day we flew from Lyon to Madrid on a noon flight with two checked bags and a backpack each. The plan was to walk the Camino Francés — or a portion of it. Ten to fifteen days in Spain, moving on foot through Navarre and La Rioja and into Castile, eating pintxos in the evenings, sleeping in village albergues, and burning off that French butter and Burgundy wine we had enjoyed on our barge and river cruise. The Camino was our moral corrective.

We stayed our first night at the Hilton near the Madrid airport and organized our packs. Rain gear, a change of clothes, hiking sticks, toiletries, an extra pair of shoes. Fifteen to twenty pounds each perhaps — more than a dedicated pilgrim would carry, but we are not, technically, pilgrims. We are travelers in need of a good walk.

The next morning we took the Renfe Alvia to Pamplona. We arrived to a torrential downpour with a weather forecast that promised much of the same in the following days.

The forecast for Lorca said 95 percent chance of rain — and it wasn’t wrong. The rain gauge tells the story as well as the umbrellas. So we waited, watched other wet pilgrims come and go, and saved our legs for drier days. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

Plan B: Which Turned Out to Be Fine

We didn’t linger in Pamplona — just long enough to wait out the worst of it in the train station, an hour or so at a table having lunch. When the rain briefly relented, we pushed on, taking a bus south to Lorca, a small medieval village on the Camino Francés where Marucia’s friend runs an albergue called Bodega del Camino.

Lorca has been a stop on the pilgrimage route since the Middle Ages; King García Ramírez, the grandson of El Cid, died here in 1150, but we weren’t here for history. We were here to begin our Camino experience.

We had a private room in a house full of walkers and a few cyclists, all of them soggy, all of them in good spirits in the way that Camino walkers can be. Dinner that first night was communal and loud and the food was excellent — the kind of meal that a restaurant could not replicate because the ingredient is the company. After dinner, we took an hourlong walk on the Camino; the medieval village and the landscape outside the town were stunning. We slept that night satisfied that our Camino journey had begun.

At 6 a.m., however, we were awakened by shoes tumbling in the dryer in the room next to ours, as fellow pilgrims dried out and prepared to push on into whatever the sky had in store. The Camino has its own alarm clock, and it does not consult your preferences.

Marucia’s friend offered us the use of her car for the day. We accepted without deliberation. The rain was still coming. We were not eager to walk under soggy skies. What followed was memorable. We drove through Puente la Reina, a small town where several Camino routes converge, its medieval bridge still carrying pilgrims as it has for more than 1,000 years. Then we stopped to walk in Cirauqui, an ancient hilltop village of narrow cobbled streets that seemed undisturbed by the present century.

Next we found the Urederra River gorge — a national park of waterfalls and rapids in a canyon of improbable green, everything saturated by the rain. We walked about seven miles that day, not all of it on the Camino proper, but all of it beautiful. At a small bar near the national park, we were apparently enough of a novelty — a couple from California, speaking Spanish, on a wet afternoon in May in a one-bar village miles off the beaten track.

The Camino Francés runs on ancient bones — past a map of the whole improbable journey, up the steep stone lanes of Cirauqui (whose name means “nest of vipers” in Basque), and across two bridges that have been carrying pilgrims for centuries: the 11th-century Romanesque bridge at Puente la Reina, built by a queen so pilgrims could cross the Arga River, and the Roman bridge at Cirauqui, part of a stretch of Roman road that still forms the Camino path today. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

We slept a second night at the Bodega. The next morning, we were offered a ride to Estella, where we caught a bus, along with many other Camino walkers all eager to avoid the rain, to Logroño. We met a Canadian lady who had shoved an earplug in her ear to drown out the snoring in an albergue. The earplug broke off in her ear, and she was headed to a hospital in Logroño to have it removed.

The choral snoring was one reason I sought to avoid the dorms in the albergues, opting for private rooms or hotels. In Logroño, we put ourselves in a decent apartment for about €90 and went to Calle Laurel that evening — the famous street of pintxos bars, where you move from door to door with a small plate and a glass of Rioja, eating your way through the block. Here we were doing what the barge and river cruise had trained us so well to do.

Calle del Laurel in Logroño is the Camino’s best argument for stopping before Santiago. This legendary pintxos street — a few blocks of wall-to-wall bars in the old quarter — is where La Rioja’s wine culture and its food culture arrive at the same table at the same time. The drill is simple and deeply civilized: you move from bar to bar, each one known for its own specialty, a glass of Rioja white or red in hand, a pintxo or two in front of you. No reservations, no menus to study, no hurry. Just octopus on a wooden plate, a cold pour of Vivanco Lías Finas, and a chalkboard outside La Tavina listing everything you didn’t know you wanted. Pilgrims stumble in with muddy boots and leave considerably happier. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

Walking, Eventually

We did walk. We should say that because the story so far might suggest we spent the Spanish portion of the trip eating and borrowing cars and taking buses, which is not quite accurate.

The next morning we did take a bus to Azqueta but that was to hike to Los Arcos — about 8 miles on the trail, though with the approaches and departures through towns we covered 12 or 13 miles that day. We carried daypacks only, which was exactly the right thing to do.

The day started at L’Antorcha, a pit stop of sorts run by a Dutch owner named René. He understood, better than most, what a Camino walker needs at eight in the morning: good coffee, fresh juice, real food, outdoor chairs, upbeat music and a view worth sitting in. The terrace — black tables and chairs on a stone courtyard, flags from dozens of nations strung overhead, the Navarrese countryside rolling away toward a lone green hill — had the feel of a place that belongs to everyone passing through, which is precisely the point. A whiteboard at the entrance was covered in pilgrim greetings in a dozen languages: Buen Camino, Welkom, Hola. We stayed longer than we planned because René’s story is the kind the Camino specializes in producing. He arrived in Azqueta in October 2023, a pilgrim looking for a cold beer. The bar was closed, so he walked 100 meters to the La Perla Negra pilgrims’ house, where he met Helena, the owner, sitting outside with a cup of tea. He asked for a cerveza fría. He ended up staying three days, helping with the laundry, the cleaning and the cooking. He finished his Camino, made it to Finisterre, and came back. When the bar came up for sale, he didn’t hesitate. A university teacher from Holland, he left the classroom, bought L’Antorcha and stayed. The Camino has a way of rerouting people.

Within 5 minutes of leaving sunny L’Antorcha, it began to rain again.

A local in a parked car appeared on the trail — not unusual on the Camino, where the path sometimes doubles as a farm track. His window was down and he was handing out flyers for his restaurant in Villamayor de Monjardín. The rain was unrelenting. After a few minutes the restaurant owner drove in our direction, offering us a ride, which we gladly accepted. When we got to his restaurant, he went behind the bar and handed us each a small chocolate Easter egg. A stranger’s car, a wet trail, chocolate eggs in the rain. Only on the Camino.

The rain subsided, and the trail took us south and east through the Navarrese countryside, through vineyards and grain fields and occasional clusters of oak, with the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Seven kilometers from Los Arcos, we came upon a food truck parked at the side of the path, run by an American. We stopped, as you stop at food trucks on wet trails, and fell into conversation. His son, it turned out, had gone to school at Warren Wilson College, the small progressive institution outside Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown. Who would have thought that time and place could converge on the Camino?

By the end of the day we had met three entrepreneurs — a Dutchman who bought a bar after falling in love on the Camino, a Spaniard who hands out Easter eggs to pilgrims, and an American running a food truck in the Navarrese countryside. The Camino attracts all types.

The day ran from L’Antorcha’s stone terrace and flag-strung courtyard in Azqueta to a roadside food truck seven kilometers from Los Arcos, with a local restaurateur rescuing Marucia and me from the rain barely five minutes into our hike. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

We made our way back to Logroño. The next day, rather than walk the stretch to Santo Domingo de la Calzada — reportedly one of the less scenic stages — we took the Jiménez bus for €3.50 a person and arrived in time for lunch.

The Parador & Other Small Glories

Santo Domingo de la Calzada is a Camino town with a fascinating history. Its cathedral has, famously, a live rooster and hen in a gilded cage inside — a tradition rooted in one of the Camino’s most enduring legends. In the 14th century, a German family stopped here on their pilgrimage to Santiago. The innkeeper’s daughter fell in love with their teenage son, Hugonell, who didn’t return her feelings. Scorned, she hid a silver cup in his bag and accused him of theft. He was hanged. His parents continued to Santiago, and on their return stopped to pay their respects — and found their son still alive, miraculously sustained. They rushed to tell the magistrate, who was sitting down to a dinner of roasted hen and rooster. He replied that their son was as alive as the birds on his plate. At which point the roasted birds stood up, grew back their feathers and crowed. The town’s saying ever since: “Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada” — where the chicken sang after being roasted. The birds in the cathedral today are said to be their descendants.

We arrived in time for lunch — and, as it happened, an €11 haircut from a young Moroccan barber whose family had moved to Santo Domingo the year before. We stayed at the Parador Bernardo de Fresneda, which was the right place to stay in Santo Domingo. Paradores are Spain’s network of state-run hotels in historic buildings — monasteries, castles, fortresses — and this one, a converted monastery beside the cathedral, delivered everything the category promises. Stone floors, high ceilings, quiet rooms, all housed in an historic building along the Camino.

In the late afternoon, we hiked about five miles uphill to the village of Cirueña — daypacks, walking sticks and light coming sideways across the green meseta. Then we called Oscar, a taxi driver whose number we’d gotten from the Parador’s front desk, and he came and fetched us for €15 and drove us back down through the golden dusk, just in time to clean up for dinner.

The next afternoon we came to Burgos by bus — a cathedral city of the first order, home to El Cid and to one of the great Gothic cathedrals in Spain. Marucia went inside while I wandered the exterior and the plaza. She came out shaking her head in the way you do when something is simultaneously magnificent and faintly absurd: The interior, she said, was like a monument to the wealthy dead — chapel after chapel given over to the elaborately carved tombs of bishops, constables and noble families, gold leaf covering everything, generations of the powerful arranging their eternal comfort with the same energy they’d applied to earthly life. Which is, in its way, exactly what a Gothic cathedral is. From the outside, the twin spires do what great Gothic architecture always does — they make you feel the ambition of the people who built them and the centuries between you and them.

As planned before leaving California, we met friends in Burgos, at the Museo de la Evolución Humana, which houses original fossils from the nearby Atapuerca excavations — some of the oldest human remains found in Europe. That evening the four of us had dinner with two Australian women who were hiking the Camino. Marucia and I ordered the sopa de ajo, the garlic soup of Castile — a humble thing by description, made from stale bread, garlic, smoked paprika and broth, with an egg poached in. It was the kind of dish that’s already on our list to make when we return home.

Madrid, Made For Us

From Burgos, we made our way south to Madrid — the DoubleTree by Hilton Prado, five nights, an ideal base for the kind of trip Madrid rewards: long walks, beautiful parks, Spanish food and wine at the pace the Spanish intend it to be consumed.

Madrid was a gracious way to end everything. The hospitality of the city — its shop owners, its restaurant owners, the strangers at neighboring tables — felt genuine in a way that tourist-heavy cities sometimes fail to manage. Meals here begin with something alongside the wine, always: olives, chips, a small plate of something. At one restaurant the owner sent out a complimentary platter unprompted — pork belly and bread, just because. We won’t forget that.

We found Cervecería Alemana on Plaza de Santa Ana and ordered what you order there: a caña and a tapa of anchovies and olives. I sat at the table beneath Hemingway’s photograph — the one where he looks like he owns the place, which in some sense he still does. Hemingway wrote that Madrid makes you feel very badly, all question of immortality aside, to know that you will have to die and never see it again. Sitting at his table with a caña and anchovies, I understood what he meant.

Three Madrid bars, three good reasons to linger. At La Casa de las Torrijas — the interior all tiles and warm light — we ordered the house specialty: torrijas, Spain’s classic treat that falls somewhere between French toast and bread pudding, bread soaked in milk, fried, then dusted with sugar and cinnamon, and best eaten slowly with a glass of sweet wine. At Cervecería Alemana on Plaza Santa Ana — a Hemingway haunt that still feels like one — we kept it simple: a caña and a seat by the window. And at La Merecida, a friendly owner turned a neighborhood bar into a favorite, which is how the best ones always work. © 2026 Ralph Grizzle

On Monday evening we went to the Prado from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., when admission is free, and spent two intense hours with the great masters of Spanish art — Velázquez, Goya, El Greco — moving through galleries that were mercifully uncrowded. Two hours in the Prado at dusk, without the midday crush, is the right way to do it, even though it was such an intense experience that it left us feeling drained.

On another day, we toured the house of Lope de Vega, the playwright and poet who was, by most accounts, one of the more extraordinary figures of the Spanish Golden Age. He fathered 15 children, took holy orders late in life, and died at 72 having apparently squeezed more living into a single span than most people could manage in two.

On our last evening we ended up on the rooftop terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid spread out below us in the warm night. We shared a sangria and looked out over the city — the Gran Vía, the distant hills, the last light fading. Then we strolled back to the hotel, five weeks behind us, one morning ahead.

Paris, Again

But the trip wasn’t finished with us yet.

Our flight from Madrid was delayed 30 minutes, which made for a tight connection at Charles de Gaulle. We thought we could make it — and we ran with backpacks, which is not something I recommend in a Paris airport at our age. There was passport control, then a bus between terminals, then a long walk to the gate. We arrived at 3:20, which was the posted final boarding call. The gate agent looked at our boarding passes, looked at us, and said the gate was closed. They would not reopen it. We were staying in Paris.

The next several minutes involved the particular kind of negotiation that goes nowhere — the gate agent was polite and immovable in equal measure — followed by the longer, more productive conversation at the airline counter, where they rebooked us on the next day’s flight and told us we would be reimbursed €300 for our hotel and additionally for food and transfers. Even better: Under EU consumer protection rules, a delay-caused missed connection also entitles passengers to €600 each in compensation. A missed flight has rarely paid so well.

We had a beautiful unplanned night in Paris. We ate at Le Casse-Noix — “the nutcracker” — a restaurant we love on the Rue de la Fédération. Then we walked along the Seine to the Allée des Cygnes, the Path of Swans, a narrow tree-lined island in the middle of the river. At its western tip stands a quarter-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, facing west toward New York. We continued to the end of the island and finished our walk in front of the Eiffel Tower just as it began to sparkle. I decided too that I liked Paris more than I liked Madrid. No knock on the Spanish capital. It is a fascinating city. But the City of Light has something that no other city has.

Madrid seduces with its intensity — the Prado’s dark masterworks, the late-night energy, the raw Castilian light hitting the plaza stones like something biblical. Paris seduces with its beauty — the kind that ambushes you on an ordinary street corner, in the curve of a bridge, in amber light spilling from a brasserie at dusk. Both cities get inside you. Both stay. But Paris has the Seine running through the heart of it, giving the city an artery that Madrid, for all its reinvention, cannot quite match.

And Paris has something Hemingway understood better than most. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,” he wrote, “then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” As we strolled Paris at dusk, we felt what he described. Madrid dazzles in the moment. Paris beckons you to return. We will be doing exactly that in 2027 — twice — hosting small-group barge trips through the French waterways. See 2027 Hosted Barge Trips.

Our trip had made a complete circle — we started in Paris and we ended in Paris. It wasn’t Plan A to sleep in France tonight, but as this trip has proven, a good Plan B can work out just fine.

We fly home tomorrow — for real this time. But on the morning we were to fly, I couldn’t resist one more Parisian experience: a croissant aux amandes, eaten outside on Avenue Kleber, watching the city go about its morning.

What Five Weeks Does

A week in Europe and you’re still jet-lagged when you leave. Five weeks, and Montmartre starts to feel like years ago. The trip accumulates into something that resembles, however briefly, a life rather than a vacation.

By the second week you settle into a rhythm that isn’t quite European and isn’t quite American but is something usefully in between — attentive, unhurried, willing to change plans when a friend lends you a car, or a stranger on a wet trail hands you a chocolate egg, or an airline closes a gate 30 seconds before you arrive.

We did not walk the Camino as planned. We walked portions of it, in various configurations, with daypacks instead of full loads and buses filling the gaps. But the Camino is less a route than a state of mind — and the entrepreneurs, the pilgrims, the borrowed car, the chocolate eggs, the communal dinners, the shoes in the dryer at six in the morning — all of it was the Camino. We ate extremely well throughout. The decadence of France was not undone, exactly, but it was contextualized — and the five weeks together made something that neither half could have made alone.

We are happy to be going home. We are a little sad to see the curtains close on this particular journey. That tension, I think, is the best possible review a trip can receive.

I know this: I would do all of it again and hope I do.

Practical note: U.S. citizens can spend up to 90 days in the Schengen Area within any 180-day period — comfortable math for a month-long trip. The EU’s new ETIAS pre-travel authorization is scheduled to launch in late 2026 and won’t become mandatory until around April 2027. As of May 2026 the application portal isn’t open yet; when it is, the process will be quick and online, similar to the U.S. ESTA, with a proposed fee of around €20 and a three-year validity.

Viking reached out with an invitation to sail the Great Lakes, and about a week later, I was packing my bags.

Truthfully, I had no hesitation saying yes. Things at home had been hard and stressful, and while I won’t get into the details here, I knew I needed to step away for a few days. More than anything, I needed to be somewhere that asked very little of me. Somewhere the details were handled. Somewhere I could take a breath.

And if there was one kind of travel I trusted to offer that kind of ease, care and attention to detail, it was cruising. Viking delivered.

I know that may sound like standard cruise-review language, but there is a difference between noticing good service and needing it.

A big part of why this trip worked for me had to do with the crew. There were about five travel writers on board during my sailing, and at some point, nearly all of us said some version of the same thing: this crew stood out.

I talked with several crew members who had been with Viking for years, some even decades, including Alex, the hairdresser in the salon, and Jermaine, a bar waiter I knew from a previous Viking sailing to Bermuda. Across the ship, the service felt warm, steady and personal.

And when you are feeling stressed, there are few places better to be than a spa.

Viking Polaris has a complimentary Nordic spa on board, and I used it often. Treatments are available for an additional cost, but you do not need to book a massage or facial to use the thermal suite. Though, for the record, I would recommend it. My massage was amazing. Guests can use the sauna, steam room, Snow Grotto, cold plunge bucket, hydrotherapy pool, open-air hot tub and heated loungers as part of the onboard experience.

Beyond the spa, I also appreciated the dedicated fitness spaces on Viking Polaris. The ship has a weight room, cardio equipment including treadmills and bikes and a separate open studio used for activities like yoga and stretching. It gave guests more than one way to decompress, whether that meant sitting in the thermal suite, getting in a workout or simply taking a little time away from the busier parts of the ship.

While the spa and fitness spaces gave me places to reset on board, the expedition side of Viking Polaris gave me something different: a reason to get outside and reconnect with nature.

In the Benjamin Islands, I went kayaking along the rocky shoreline. On Flowerpot Island, I joined a hike that showed off the island’s unusual rock formations and clear blue water. Both excursions were active without feeling overly intense, and they gave me a better sense of the Great Lakes beyond the ship.

The other thing that shaped the trip was the fellow passengers.

Viking’s expedition sailings tend to attract people who are curious. On this sailing, guests seemed genuinely interested in learning about where we were and getting out to see things. People showed up for lectures. They asked questions. We compared notes after excursions and lingered over meals and conversations instead of rushing off to the next thing.

That helped shape the atmosphere on board. The ship felt social without being overwhelming. There was room to keep to yourself when you wanted to, but it was also easy to strike up a conversation with someone who was just as interested in the day’s hike, the next port or just sharing stories about life at home.

Between the guests and the crew, the ship had a warmth that felt easy to settle into.

And really, that is what I kept coming back to throughout the trip: the feeling of being taken care of. Not in one big, dramatic way, but in the small, repeated ways that make travel feel easy. Jay and Joanna working every day to keep the room spotless. The head waiters at World Café greeting me by name each time I walked in. Emma at reception smiling when I passed by. Andre, the general manager, being present and approachable around the ship.

For travelers looking to unwind, this itinerary is a good one. And if you live in the US, cruising the Great Lakes offers the comfort of staying closer to home, with fewer time-zone changes, no language barriers and less of the friction that can come with more complicated international travel. You still have the sense of exploration, but the experience feels easier to settle into from the start.

Next week, I will share more about the onboard experience on Viking Polaris. But this week, what stood out most was the way this sailing made space for calm and rest. It was beautiful, but it was also easy. And sometimes, that is exactly what travel needs to be.

Hi from Killarney, on Georgian Bay in Canada!

We are now on our third day aboard Viking Polaris, and so far, the trip has been great.

This is my first time sailing on one of Viking’s expedition ships, and the ship itself has been one of the biggest standouts. At 378 guests, Polaris falls somewhere between Viking’s river and ocean ships — much smaller than a traditional ocean ship, but larger than a river ship. 

There are a few things I miss from Viking’s ocean ships, especially the Wintergarden, which is one of my favorite venues. But a similar relaxed, light-filled feeling can be found at the Aquavit Terrace. And compared with Viking’s river ships, the spa and fitness spaces are a clear step up.

Speaking of the spa, we started yesterday morning in the thermal suite, moving between the steam room, snow grotto, cold water bucket and open-air hot tub. We’ll definitely be back to try the pool and sauna. 

The spa team was there to help and suggested the best order to use everything, which was appreciated. Without that, I probably would have spent at least part of the morning wondering whether I was doing Scandinavian wellness correctly or just finding new ways to embarrass myself in a bathing suit.

The food has also been excellent so far. We’ve only eaten in the World Café, the ship’s buffet, but I’ve been impressed by both the quality and the variety. There have been plenty of lighter options, which I appreciate, but also enough desserts, breads and richer dishes to remind you that you are, in fact, on vacation. Tomorrow we’ll dine at Manfredi’s, Viking’s Italian restaurant, where the menu includes dishes like osso buco, chicken parmigiana, bistecca alla Fiorentina, risotto with porcini mushrooms and Manfredi’s lasagne al forno.

Our stateroom has also been a pleasant surprise. Ralph has written before about Viking’s idea of “affordable luxury,” and the room is a good example of that: not flashy, but comfortable, spacious and thoughtfully designed. I especially love the amount of storage and the small living area with an L-shaped couch. It sounds like a small detail, but it makes the space feel much more usable than the standard cruise ship setup, where the sofa often seems to be placed wherever it happens to fit.

The room also has a floor-to-ceiling window that opens from the top, giving you fresh air without a traditional balcony. It is a smart feature for this type of ship, especially in cooler destinations where a full balcony might not get much use. The bathroom has heated floors, which are always appreciated, but my favorite feature might be the drying closet. Bathing suits, wet jackets, the pants I got a stain on at lunch and had to wash in the sink — you name it, that little closet handles it. It may take up space in the cabin, but I am now personally prepared to petition for one in every room I stay in for the rest of my life.

We still have plenty of sailing ahead of us, including more time onboard, more meals, more ports and more chances to see how Viking’s expedition experience compares with its river and ocean products. But for now, first impressions are very positive.

More soon from the Great Lakes,

Britton

We are not dancers. We took salsa classes recently — just for the fun of it. Dancing is something that happens to other people, people who go out to night clubs, ballrooms and lounges or attend weddings.

And yet. On several nights, we found ourselves on the dance floor on the AmaCello, often the first ones there. Marucia and I, moving together in the ship’s lounge, as others joined, the windows dark around us.

On most nights, our world became the music and the people and the particular warmth of a room where everyone has spent the day walking the cobblestones, standing before cathedrals, crossing bridges — and now had nowhere else to be other than bed. We stayed up to dance.

We don’t do that at home. Life is too busy. And at the end of a long day we are content to plop down on the sofa and watch television. But not on the AmaCello. We walked the cities where we docked after dinner, returning to our ship, to dance. Slow dances, fast dances, old and new dances. We had the sensation of floating, and indeed the floor beneath us was doing just that, on the Saône, in a city, on a lovely night where music and romance mixed, like an old movie where we were the actors.

Transported & Transformed

My daughter has sailed AmaWaterways before, and when I told her about those evenings, she said, matter-of-factly, “AmaWaterways is the cruise line where people dance.” She wasn’t wrong. I had seen it too on other AmaWaterways cruises. I had danced myself but never as I did on this trip. Being with someone special on a river cruise with no pressing agenda, nowhere else to be, transported me.

That’s the thing about a river cruise that we keep trying to explain to people who haven’t taken one — it takes you in two directions at once. There’s the literal journey, of course: the slow drift through Burgundy, the vine-covered landscapes, the medieval towns materializing and then dissolving at the water’s edge. But there’s also the other kind of transport, the interior kind, where the ordinary weight of your life — the inbox, the obligations, the accumulated noise of being a person with responsibilities — simply lifts.

One woman in our group said it was the first time she’d been able to truly relax in longer than she could remember. She carries a full life at home — the kind that doesn’t pause easily. But somewhere on the AmaCello, between one port and the next, something let go. Not a vacation where you come home needing a vacation. Real relaxation. The kind that changes something.

We think the river has something to do with it. Moving water carries you even when you’re standing still. There’s a rhythm to it — the gentle push of the current, the unhurried pace of the days, the simple act of floating. Somewhere in that rhythm, people become different versions of themselves. Quieter in some ways. More open in others. More inclined to let the concerns of their lives drop and take that first forward motion to the floor — to dance.

One moment that stays with me happened last year on the Rhône. Ed, who travels with our groups, brought his wife Carol to the dance floor. She had suffered a stroke more than a decade ago and uses a wheelchair. Ed wheeled her out among the other dancers and danced with her there, the two of them moving together in their own way, in their own time.

The Dance Continues

During those nights that we danced on AmaCello, we didn’t know that it had given us something we would carry with us. Two weeks later, we were in the final days of our Camino adventure. We stopped for morning coffee at a bar in Burgos. A friendly young man took our order for two café con leches. An older man sat at the counter, sipping coffee and reading the day’s edition of the Diario de Burgos. Another sat in the corner, eyes fixed on his laptop. A jukebox played a Latin rhythm, unhurried and familiar.

Neither of us hesitated. We took each other’s hands and danced.

The contrast is worth noting. Last year we paired a canal cruise on the Camargue with a Rhône sailing—switching vessels after seven days—and as my daughter writes in her piece on river cruise vs. canal cruise, the two experiences aren’t comparable. They’re just different. Both work. They just work differently. See Slow Water: Seven Days On CroisiEurope’s Daniele

We are cruising the Saône from Lyon to Chalon (originally Dijon—more on that later), with stops in Mâcon, Tournus and Seurre. Slower than the Rhône, quieter, and—if you let it—more immersive.

A Week Aboard the AmaCello

AmaWaterways is not quite the same company it was the last time I sailed it. In March 2024, global investment firm L Catterton acquired a significant stake, with co-founders Rudi Schreiner and Kristin Karst retaining meaningful ownership. Catherine Powell, a former Disney and Airbnb executive, became CEO in July 2025, with Rudi Schreiner moving to chairman and my friend Kristin Karst becoming global brand ambassador. A rebrand followed—the previous blue and gold giving way to a warmer rust-red palette the company calls vivace, with fleet repainting underway and expected to complete by 2027. Onboard, the experience felt seamless. The color on the hull is new. The rest is continuity.

AmaWaterways operates two ships on this stretch of southern France—the AmaCello on the Saône and the AmaKristina on the Rhône. Last October we cruised the AmaKristina with a group from Arles to Lyon; you can read that story here. The two itineraries pair naturally—different rivers, different character, the same standard of ship.

We were in stateroom 303, a junior suite. Fresh fruit arrived daily and was replenished without being asked. Laundry service was included and delivered back to us sometimes within hours. Soft drinks and juices were restocked daily in our minibar. There was a sitting area, and in the bathroom, a tub and separate shower. Aside from the space, what we appreciated most was the large French balcony that opened onto the river—each day we enjoyed watching Burgundy go by.

The ship’s gym was recently enlarged, though it remains modest—two stationary bikes, a treadmill, dumbbells to 8 kilograms. Wellness host Adrian’s morning sessions drew early risers, including some in our group who attended every day.

The Chef’s Table at the stern requires a reservation but costs nothing extra. Though AmaCello’s Always Available menu features hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pizza and an evening selection of Black Angus ribeye, Caesar salad and chicken dishes, we nearly always opted for the Chef’s Recommendations—usually regional dishes such as Beef Bourguignon, paired with excellent regional wines at no additional cost.

Dietary needs are handled without ceremony. There is a focus on wellness, with items such as chia pudding, fresh salads, smoked salmon and trout on the breakfast and lunch menus. Dinner menus even list protein content.

One personal touch that signals the company’s new direction: a Laura Geller beauty gift set arrived in our stateroom mid-week, with a handwritten note from CEO Catherine Powell. Small gesture, but much appreciated.

The Saône

The Rhône moves with purpose toward the Mediterranean. The Saône does not. It widens, slows, and settles into Burgundy—vineyards, limestone villages, plane trees and poplars and long stretches where the point is not getting somewhere but watching carefully as you go. Sailing it feels less like transit and more like reading a landscape slowly, page by page.

Lyon

A proper starting point—food-driven, historic, confident in its identity. We overnighted here, which is the right amount of time to begin to understand it. Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse is a cathedral to French food; we moved from stall to stall sampling wines, cheese and pâté the way you move through a very good meal—slowly. Some in our group raved about the guided bike tours. Others walked Vieux Lyon, the UNESCO-designated old town. I rode 20 miles along the waterfront, watching signs for Geneva on the bike route markers—the EuroVelo 17 follows the Rhône all the way from Lake Geneva, fed by the river’s headwaters in the Swiss Alps, to the Mediterranean.

We left Lyon in the evening, and Marucia and I stood at the French balcony with the sliding door fully open, watching the city pass. Young people sat in clusters along the riverside promenade. Buildings were brightly illuminated, their reflections breaking apart on the water below. The sailing had the quality of a Monet—light and water and the blur of a city at ease with itself on a Friday night.

Mâcon

Marucia and I traveled with others to Cluny Abbey, where the scale of what the Cluniac order once was—1,450 abbeys, 10,000 monks—is legible even in the ruins. Others did a Mâconnais wine tasting. After lunch I stayed aboard; the day’s real highlight came before sunset, when our small group gathered on the sundeck with wine, bread and cheese from the morning market. After dinner, Marucia and I danced in the lounge.

Tournus

Marucia visited the Abbey Saint-Philibert, Romanesque architecture that has stood above the Saône since the 10th century. I spent 20 minutes in the gym first, then joined seven others on bikes for 21 miles along the Voie Bleue to Chalon—flat, scenic, unhurried. Full sun, the river on one side, vines on the other. At one point we were crossing a bridge just as the AmaCello passed underneath; I stopped and photographed her from above.

The bike ride is a good place to note what sets AmaWaterways apart from most river cruise lines on the activity front. The company is among the more active in the industry—bikes are available to every guest at no extra charge, as are guided bike tours, which run on most port days. Guests can also ride independently. The same goes for the wellness programming: Adrian, our wellness host, led morning stretch, core and yoga sessions throughout the week, all included in the fare. The gym is there for those who want it. On a cruise where wine and cheese appear on the sundeck most afternoons, the balance feels intentional—and appreciated.

That evening’s wine-paired dinner, guided by sommeliers Roxanne Langer and Tamara Carver, was the week’s best meal. Five of us walked afterward and found an illuminated church. Marucia and I danced again, this time to Marion Borius—French classics and jazz.

Chalon-sur-Saône

Chalon-sur-Saône is a proper market town, medieval bones and half-timbered houses. Marucia took the walking tour. I stayed aboard for the afternoon sailing—the Saône north of Chalon is Burgundy at its most composed, and there is something to be said for watching it pass from the sundeck with a coffee and no particular plan.

Seurre

The strongest excursion of the trip: a cooperage visit at Art du Tonneau, where host Daniel walked us through 2,000 years of barrel-making history before handing us the tools. I’ve written about it in full here. Short version: Book it. It’s the best excursion on this itinerary.

In the afternoon, a mechanical issue—something interfering with the starboard stern thruster—halted the ship. A diver came from Marseille and found nothing obvious, but the AmaCello still couldn’t maneuver safely enough to continue to Saint-Jean-de-Losne, where the river narrows and turning around without a fully functioning thruster would be difficult. Departure was canceled. The afternoon bike ride became a shorter local tour. The ship overnighted in Seurre. No one seemed particularly bothered. This is where river cruising distinguishes itself: the ability to absorb disruption without losing the experience.

Overnight, Captain Nicolas resolved the problem via video call with the engineer—air in the hydraulic line, it turned out. Nicolas is 37, and has the easy authority of someone who has been doing this long enough to be unrattled by it. I stopped by the wheelhouse on the final morning’s sailing, and he gestured at the landscape passing beyond the glass—rapeseed fields, cattle, the river bending ahead. He has sailed this river many times. He is still mesmerized by it.

The farewell cocktail that evening had the particular feeling that last nights on ships always have—the crew lined up, Captain Nicolas and hotel manager Nicoleta working the room, Cruise Manager Christian making the rounds. The Krystal Live Band closed the night. Marucia and I found the dance floor one more time.

A Personal Thread

This sailing carried a second purpose. In September 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Western North Carolina, including Fairview, a community I know well—I own 2.5 acres there and was present when the storm came through. Months later, a conversation with Kristin Karst at the River Cruise Expo in Vienna ended with a simple question: How can we help? That question became this cruise. The six people I brought aboard—eight of us with Marucia and me—had all lived through Helene. Their bookings supported FairviewStrong.org, the grassroots organization still rebuilding homes and lives. That context didn’t define the cruise—but it gave it weight.

An Improvised Ending

The final morning in Seurre was logistically complicated, and hotel manager Nicoleta earned every bit of the Wonder Woman title I gave her. Normally the ship is provisioned from an 18-wheeler—pallets offloaded by small forklift-like devices, the crew forming into a chain, moving goods aboard in an orderly sequence. This morning, that operation had to be completed before 9 a.m., simultaneously with breakfast service in the Journeys Restaurant, two tour buses loading guests for Dijon, and a narrow quai that barely accommodated any of it. Kitchens open, guests eating, pallets moving, buses idling—Nicoleta managed all of it without visible distress. When she walked into the lounge afterward with two thumbs up—”We did it”—it was the understatement of the week.

The bike tour was canceled—the logistics made it impossible. Most guests boarded coaches for Dijon, where guides led walking tours through the UNESCO-designated historic center and its Palace of the Dukes. I stayed aboard. The ship was ready to sail—not to Saint-Jean-de-Losne, where the cruise was scheduled to end, but back to Chalon-sur-Saône. Saint-Jean-de-Losne is the Dijon port, though Dijon itself is 30 kilometers away via the Burgundy Canal—a waterway barges can navigate but river ships cannot. Chalon docks right in the city. It is probably better that way.

The last stretch on the Saône was quiet: golden rapeseed fields, white Charolais cattle—the breed native to this land between the Saône and Loire—grazing at the bank, bird songs on both sides of the river, the engine so quiet you could hear the water parting at the bow. Purser Cosmina Ionita came up on deck and looked out at the fields and the cattle and the light on the water. “It’s like these people live in paradise,” she said. She wasn’t wrong.

That evening, our group of eight had dinner together at the Chef’s Table. Situated at the stern, it is enclosed in windows on all sides—the river, the city, the bridges of Chalon-sur-Saône framed like paintings as the sun went down. It was a beautiful way to end the trip. There were hugs afterward—the kind that mean something. Seven days on a river has a way of doing that to a small group. We talked about it, actually: how this kind of travel, unhurried and close, makes bonding almost inevitable. None of us wanted to say goodbye. So we said what French friends say to one another—à bientôt—and promised a future adventure together.

Learn more about upcoming trips: 2026 Alsace | 2027 Paris in the Middle: One Week Or Two, Plus Reims At The End

A note on our cruise manager: his name is Christian Abker, and the world is smaller than it appears. Though German by birth, Christian lives in Brazil—in Vitória, Espírito Santo, the city where Marucia grew up, near the beach village where her family home is and where we spent six weeks earlier this year. He and Marucia spent part of an afternoon comparing notes on a place all three of us love. I wrote about that time in Two Months In Brazil: Samba, Soul & The Road To The Amazon.

In reality, these journeys are a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure story. The structure is there, but how your day unfolds is entirely up to you. You can follow the plan, join a guided excursion, or peel off and do your own thing – and most days, all of those options are on the table.

At its core, a river cruise experience is a balance between structure and flexibility. There’s a daily rhythm, of course – excursions, time on board, meals and sailing between destinations. But how much you do, and how you spend your time, is entirely up to you.

To give you a better idea of what a typical day on a river cruise looks like, here’s how things often unfold.

Morning: A Flexible Start

Mornings on a river cruise are a perfect example of how flexible the experience can be.

For early risers, there’s usually a light breakfast starting around 6:30 a.m. – coffee, pastries, something small before heading out. For those like me, there’s a more traditional breakfast service that makes it entirely possible to wake up at the last minute and grab something quick before a 9 a.m. excursion.

Most days include a morning excursion, whether that’s a guided walking tour, a bike ride or something more specialized depending on the itinerary. On other days, especially in scenic areas like the Rhine Gorge, the morning might be spent entirely on board, just watching the landscape pass by.

Either way, you’ll usually have options – and that flexibility is part of what makes the river cruise experience so appealing. It can also lead to a little decision fatigue. What if you pick the wrong excursion? What if you miss something better?

To help ease that fatigue, you’ll have expert guidance at your fingertips. Cruise directors do a great job of walking through the daily programming. So, utilize them to ask questions about excursion length, difficulty or what they think might be the best fit for you. Much of the crew also knows these itineraries inside and out. They spend their free time in the towns along the river, so don’t be afraid to ask what they recommend. Some of the best excursions I’ve taken were ones I switched into at the last minute based on a crew suggestion.

Just remember – a typical day on a river cruise isn’t about doing everything. It’s about figuring out what kind of day you want to have. After all, these itineraries aren’t designed for everyone to do and see everything – they’re built around choice, so you can get the kind of trip you actually want out of them.

Midday: Make It Your Own

By late morning or early afternoon, most people are back on board.

Lunch is typically served on the ship, and it’s when you’ll hear everyone comparing notes. Which guide was the best, who climbed to the top of the tower, what everyone got up to that morning.

But this is another area where the flexibility of the river cruise experience really shows up. If the ship is docked in town, you can head back out and grab lunch on your own. If it’s docked further out, there are usually shuttles running back and forth so you can go into town or return to the ship on your own schedule.

For me, this is the perfect time to wander away from the group. Some of my best memories have come from lunches tucked away in small cafes in places I knew nothing about.

Who knew Würzburg had THE BEST savory waffles? I didn’t – until I skipped the plan and found out. Shoutout to Café Wunschlos glücklich.

Afternoon: Quiet Onboard

Afternoons can look a lot of different ways. Some days include additional excursions. Other times, it’s scenic cruising, time on the sun deck or just a chance to slow down.

On certain lines like AmaWaterways, Avalon or Emerald, you might find wellness-focused activities – guided walks, fitness classes, bike rides, even something like mini golf on the sun deck.

This time of day is often when the ship feels its calmest. People spread out – some reading in the lounge, others sitting outside with a drink, watching the scenery pass by. It’s a nice reset before the evening picks up again.

Evening: What To Expect At Night

Evenings on a river cruise are relaxed.

Dinner is the main event – typically a longer, social experience with multiple courses and plenty of wine.

After dinner, there’s usually some form of entertainment. Sometimes it’s a resident musician or a casual dance in the lounge. Other nights, it’s local performers brought on board – dancers, singers or cultural presentations. Occasionally, there might be a lecture or a tasting.

What you won’t find are big shows or late-night energy. If you’re expecting nightlife, it’s not really part of the experience.

That said, a few adventurous guests will occasionally head off the ship in port. There are bars, casinos and nightclubs in many destinations – you just don’t see many people leaving the ship for them.

What The River Cruise Experience Is Like Day To Day

One of the more unexpected parts of the river cruise experience is how quickly the ship starts to feel familiar.

The first day or two, you’re getting your bearings – figuring out the layout, learning names, trying to remember what’s where. Then suddenly, it all clicks.

By the middle of the trip, the crew knows you by name. You have a favorite spot in the dining room. The bartender already knows your drink order. You start recognizing people, then talking to them, then sitting together at dinner.

By the end of the cruise, it’s not uncommon to feel like you’ve made real connections. Plans get tossed around about future trips, staying in touch, visiting each other.

And then, on the last night, it hits you. (For me, it’s usually tears.)

You’ve just spent a week being taken care of in a way that feels effortless. You’ve seen places you may have never gone on your own, shared meals and conversations with people you didn’t know a few days earlier and settled into a rhythm that somehow already feels like daily life.

And then, before you know it, the week comes to an end – and you’re already thinking about when you can do it again.

AmaWaterways is currently offering complimentary pre- or post-cruise land packages on select 2026 and 2027 sailings in Europe and Colombia, which essentially gives you that extra time without having to plan it yourself.

On eligible departures, you can add two to four extra nights in places like Prague, Paris, Lake Como and Budapest, with hotels, transfers and guided touring included.

Some of those same sailings also qualify for Ama’s $599 AirPlus offer, which lets you bundle in roundtrip economy airfare.

What You’re Getting

The land packages include:

• four- or five-star hotel stays
• daily breakfast
• guided tours and excursions
• transfers between your hotel and the ship
• luggage handling
• and support from an AmaWaterways cruise manager

The Options

Prague (3 nights)
Available on a wide range of Danube itineraries, including Romantic Danube and Magna on the Danube. Includes a guided city tour or castle hike for views over Prague, along with a Czech beer tasting experience.

See Exploring The Charms Of Prague With AmaWaterways

Paris (2 nights)
Offered on Seine and combination itineraries. Includes a guided tour that focuses on lesser-known parts of Paris, an immersive art experience at Atelier des Lumières and time in Montmartre with a visit to Sacré-Cœur before embarkation.

Lake Como (3 nights)
Available on select Rhine itineraries. Includes a stop in Lake Lucerne en route, followed by a stay on Lake Como with a guided walking tour and a boat ride to Bellagio.

Lake Lucerne and Zurich (4 nights)
Offered on several Rhine itineraries. Includes a walking tour of Lake Lucerne, a lake cruise and cable car ride up Mount Rigi, followed by a city tour of Zurich.

A Note On Flights

The land packages are the headline, but the $599 AirPlus option is worth noting.

It’s not available on every sailing, but when it lines up, it covers two of the biggest trip costs – flights and hotels – in one booking.

Final Thoughts

Cities like Prague and Paris are rarely one-night destinations, and most travelers end up booking extra hotel nights anyway. This just removes the need to coordinate hotels, transfers and tours separately.

If you were planning to arrive the day of your cruise and leave immediately after, it’s less relevant. But if you’re the type of traveler who wants a little more time in each destination, this is an easy way to build it in.

The Daniele’s first move is unexpected. Rather than turning west into the open Doubs, the barge noses toward the base of the Citadelle — and then into it. A tunnel cut through the limestone bluff beneath Vauban’s fortress draws us in, lit and narrow, the stone walls close on both sides. The engine note changes in the confined space, deepening, bouncing off rock that has been here since the 17th century. And then daylight again and the Doubs opening up beyond. This is how barge travel begins from Besançon. Not with a departure, exactly. More like a passage.

The week before we arrived, it had been raining. Dreary was what we heard from those who were there. April can be like that, but April can also be glorious. Daniele’s former cruise manager who I worked with several times once told me I always choose the best seasons. Yes, April on this route is a deliberate call, based on experience. But there is luck in it too, and we had it. Seven days of sustained spring sunshine. It did not rain once. That kind of weather does not make a barge trip — but it made this one shine.

The Daniele carries 22 passengers and a crew of six. She is not a large vessel —even the cabins are small by river cruise standards. No guest has ever complained that they were too small, however. In fact, Daniele’s smallness is a plus. She navigates canals that the river cruisers can’t even think about. We pass countryside that river cruise guests never see—at least not from our vantage point. And on a vessel this size, you learn the names of everyone aboard within the first hour.

A River Runs Through It

The Doubs river moves through eastern France, sometimes quietly and at other times with a roar. Canals appear in stretches of the river where it would be impossible for boats to pass. The mix of canal and river makes for interesting navigation. We stand on the sun deck and watch as a heron lifts from the reeds and glides over the river. Life appears as patient as that heron. There is no hurry. You could forget entirely that the world operates at any other speed.

Then a lock appears.

The locks on this route are among the great small pleasures of barge travel. The Daniele noses into a chamber, the gates close behind, and the water begins to rise or fall — a foot, two feet, sometimes more — while the stone walls inch past.

Seven days to cover 52 miles. It sounds almost absurdly slow until you are in it, and then it becomes the only pace that makes sense for this particular stretch of France — three waterways in sequence, the Doubs giving way to the Saône, the Saône giving way to the Burgundy Canal, each one with its own character and tempo.

An Exceptional Crew

There is another component that makes this style of travel so special. The crew. Our cruise manager Christophe ran the operation with the particular skill of someone who has mastered the balance between structure and ease — organized enough that nothing fell apart, relaxed enough that no one felt managed. But competence was only part of it. He was witty, conspiratorial, the kind of person who could roll his eyes in a way that made you feel you were in on the joke. When one guest announced his last name was King, Christophe didn’t miss a beat: “A bit pretentious.” At the end of the week he asked us to guess how many bottles of wine we had consumed. Eighty, he said, after someone guessed correctly, adding “but we emptied each one with respect.”

Laszlo, who keeps cabins refreshed, had announced himself on the first evening by holstering his cleaning bottles like a gunslinger at high noon. It was a preview. Later in the week he appeared with a mock Forbes cover bearing his own face and a novelty lottery check for just over a billion dollars — proclaiming himself the new owner of CroisiEurope and announcing that the company would henceforth be known as Crazy Europe. Over seven days he delivered humor with the timing and commitment of someone who had missed a calling on the stage. He kept us laughing in a way that only gets easier when a group is already getting along.

It was around the second day that Margo pulled me aside. Margo is our dining room steward — the kind of person who makes a room feel warmer simply by being in it. “Ralph,” she said quietly, “this group is so kind. It is such a pleasure to have on board.” I’ve worked with Margo many times, and I knew that she meant it. There are groups that can make the crew’s life hard and groups that can make their lives easier.

A few days later, the chef — the slim young French Vietnamese gentleman whose physique had given me an irrational moment of doubt when he walked into the lounge on the first evening — told me something similar. A full barge, all 11 cabins occupied, is normally the most demanding for a chef. Not this group, he said.

I understood what he meant. There is a quality some groups have, a collective generosity of spirit, that makes everything easier. This group had it. Strangers on a Thursday in Besançon, easy friends by Saturday, genuinely reluctant to say goodbye on Wednesday in Dijon.

A Beautiful Trip

After leaving Besançon, our first full day brought us to the Saline Royale at Arc-et-Senans, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s 18th-century royal saltworks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that manages to be both monumental and strange. Ledoux designed it as an ideal industrial city, a visionary plan never fully realized. What remains is a semicircle of neoclassical buildings in a clearing, grandiose, the kind of place that makes you think about ambition and time.

Ranchot came next, a village small enough that it asks nothing of you—and you nothing of it. We tied up here at the end of the day after walks along the towpath and navigating some beautiful stretches of the river. After dinner, we walked and found ourselves stopped in front of a gate — red and white picket fencing with motorcycles and targets cut into the boards, a carved wooden owl standing nearly as tall as a man, a yellow boat planted with succulents, painted barrels, ceramic figures, lanterns strung in every direction. A shed at the back bore a hand-lettered sign: EXPO. Inside, walls of handmade birdhouses, each one different, with a stuffed tiger in a straw hat keeping watch over the workbench. The owner, Raymond, appeared and invited us in for a tour, arms already raised, a story already underway. It was the kind of encounter that doesn’t happen on a schedule.

Dole came next, a handsome river town that was the capital of Franche-Comté before Besançon claimed the title. It is also the birthplace of Louis Pasteur, a fact the city notes with appropriate civic pride — his childhood home still stands in the old quarter, a short walk from the canal. The old town climbs from the water in tiers of ochre and cream, church towers rising above rooflines, cafe patrons sitting at tables under trees in a beautiful square. It is the kind of French town that travel writers reach for superlatives to describe, then realize the town itself is the better argument.

The next morning we left the Doubs to enter the Saône river. We weren’t on the river for too long before reaching Saint-Jean-de-Losne. The riverside town is smaller, quieter and more interesting than it first appears. It bills itself as France’s first river port, a distinction that sounds like tourism copy until you visit the Musée de la Batellerie and realize how seriously this town has taken its relationship with water. The museum traces the history of river navigation in France — the boats, the bargemen, the cargo, the culture — and it is genuinely absorbing. Standing there, thinking about de Jouffroy and his steam experiments on the Doubs just upstream, the thread of river history running through this entire week feels less like background color and more like the actual subject.

River cruising was born on these waterways. We are, in our small and comfortable way, still sailing its story.

Petit-Ouges barely registers on a map, which is precisely its charm. We moored there in the late afternoon and walked the canal, stopping to take in the old wash houses — stone basins where the women of the village once gathered to do the work that villages ran on. There was nothing urgent to do, which was the point.

And then Dijon — almost. We arrived on the final afternoon and moored near enough to feel the city waiting. Most guests joined the excursion south to Château du Clos de Vougeot, a 12th-century Cistercian estate on the Route des Grands Crus, where the monks who shaped Burgundy wine began their work and where the tasting rooms still do justice to that history. I went the other way — north on a bicycle, along a stretch of canal that curves and bends in a way the Burgundy Canal never does. That one runs arrow-straight from Saint-Jean-de-Losne; this one follows its own logic, winding through countryside that other barges work although the canal eventually narrows to a tunnel barges can’t transit. I rode until the path ran out of reasons to continue, then turned back. The next morning we woke up in Dijon.

The Farewell

Nearly every guest went to hug Margo goodbye. Not once during the week had she sought center stage, but she was, in fact, a quiet star of the show. The whole crew was there to help us disembark — a crew that knew they had done something well and had given us a week in France we would not forget.

I will remember them all. I will also remember the quiet joy of barging: the water moving past the hull in the early morning, the lock gates swinging open onto the next reach of canal, dinners that ran long and conversations that ran longer, the crew bringing out one more course, the Jura giving way to Burgundy in the glass.

We had exceptional weather. We had a remarkable crew. We had a route that rewards exactly this pace: unhurried, close to the water, moving through the interior of France rather than skimming its surface.

Seven days on the Daniele. Not a long time. Long enough — and reason enough to do it again.

Learn more about upcoming trips: 2026 Alsace | 2027 Paris in the Middle: One Week Or Two, Plus Reims At The End

Other stories in this series:

• Besançon: Where Our Barge Through Burgundy Begins
• Notes From Daniele: Dispatches From Our Barge On The Canal du Rhône au Rhin 
• Barging & Biking Through Burgundy At Exactly The Right Speed
• Seven Days on the Daniele: Perfect Weather, Perfect Crew, Perfect Trip

It is a gorgeous April morning. Sunlight dapples through budding trees lining the canal banks, and the water ahead of the barge catches it in slow, glinting swirls. Birds call from somewhere in the new growth — competing, it seems, to be heard. We are experiencing some of the best that spring in France has to offer.

And yet we are not on the barge. We are beside it. Deliberately. We are walking the towpaths that trace the canal. The barge will meet us at the next lock at roughly the same time we arrive. The locks control the rhythm. Our barge moves at the pace of the locks it passes through, and there are 54 of them on this journey. They set the tempo for everything that follows.

Not So Far, Not So Fast

Plotting a route from Besançon to Dijon shows that an ambitious walker could cover the distance in a day and two hours — 52 miles at a pace that would leave most people destroyed. Even at a relaxed stride, experienced walkers might manage it in four or five days. A cyclist could tackle it in a day. By car, you are there in 90 minutes.

We boarded the Danielle in Besançon on a Thursday evening. We disembark in Dijon on Wednesday. Seven days to cover 52 miles. It is, as it turns out, exactly the right pace for this particular stretch of France.

The route is not a single waterway but three. We began on the Doubs, a river that cuts through Besançon and winds west — tamed by locks for navigation, though wild sections run alongside the canals, the river doing what it wants just beyond reach. Where the Doubs meets the Saône, the character of the journey shifts — broader water, wider skies. By Sunday we had tied up in Saint-Jean-de-Losne, where the Saône gives way to the Burgundy Canal and the waterways of half a continent converge. That afternoon, I pulled a foldable bike off the Danielle and went looking for what the towpath had to offer.
By mid-afternoon I am pedaling through Saint-Jean-de-Losne on a foldable bike — 20-inch wheels, a bit small for me, good enough. The rest of my group are off on a guided tour of the city, including the barge museum, one of the more educational stops on this stretch of the trip. I chose to skip the tour. I have been here before, and I wanted to ride.

Saint-Jean-de-Losne is quiet in the way that places with outsized histories often are. It is the inland waterways capital of France, the point from which you could navigate to the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Rhine, the Black Sea. The canal network spreads from here in almost every direction, and standing at the quay you understand immediately why this small town was once one of the most important places on the continent.

The Danielle is tied up on the Saône, near where it meets the canal. I’ve left the river behind and taken a back road toward the Burgundy Canal, a road better suited to gravel bikes than this folder. But my eyes are on the golden quilts of rapeseed fields. The plant stands five or six feet high, flowering in a yellow so saturated it reads almost unreal against a cobalt blue sky. A row of trees borders the road, planted uniformly, maybe 20 feet apart — old enough that I couldn’t wrap my arms around them. Against the new growth, that particular pale green of early spring, the scene has the quality of something composed rather than something simply sown.

The trees are full of mistletoe — great green balls of it, round and improbable, like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. At one point or another, everyone has noticed it and remarked on it, charmed by what looks like decoration. It is not. Mistletoe is a parasite. Left unchecked, it could eventually kill its host.

Backroads in Burgundy

The back road becomes the towpath along the Burgundy Canal — the same packed earth path once used by the draft animals and sometimes the people who hauled cargo barges from town to town before the age of steam, a modernization that was born nearby. See Where River Cruising Began: A ‘Fire Boat’ On The Saône

France built nearly 5,000 miles of navigable waterways over three centuries, and the towpath was the muscle behind all of it, a living chain of men, women, horses and oxen straining against the current. The Burgundy Canal is one of the most traveled of these waterways, rivaled in popularity only by the Canal du Midi in the south and the Canal du Nivernais to the west. Among my favorites is the Canal de la Marne au Rhin in Alsace, which passes through Saverne on its way from the Lorraine plateau down to Strasbourg — a different character entirely, the towpath threading through the Zorn valley with locks appearing around nearly every bend.

Today the paths carry cyclists, roller skaters, pedestrians. I pass a lockkeeper’s house, then another, then another — each one different in color and form, stone here, render there, a blue shutter, a red door, small gardens gone a little wild. They appear unoccupied now, beautiful vestiges of a system that once moved the goods of a continent. The locks still require tending, and the lockkeepers still travel the towpaths between them. The barges still come through, although travelers have taken the place of cargo. The path endures.

Bike & Barge

I stop pedaling and let the bike roll to a coast. A few days earlier, in Dole, I had spotted a EuroVelo 6 sign at the city center pointing in the direction of Budapest. I pulled up my map and calculated that the Hungarian capital was more than 900 miles away. I longed to ride it, and in fact I’ve done quite a few sections of EuroVelo 6.

EuroVelo 6 is one of the world’s great cycling routes — 2,700 miles in all, from the Atlantic coast of France to the Black Sea, following the Loire, the Rhine, the Danube through ten countries. It is a route designed for exactly this pace: close to the water, moving through the interior of a continent rather than skimming its surface. I have cycled across America, across Canada, both islands of New Zealand, through Europe. I have covered a lot of ground on a bicycle over the course of a life. Riding sections of EuroVelo 6 on this trip, even briefly, even on a 20-inch folding bike that was never meant for the purpose, felt like making good on something I had been promising myself for a long time. A route I may never complete in full. One I am glad to have touched many times over a life spent writing about river cruising.

I am alone for a stretch, and I understand, not for the first time, why I keep doing this.

It is not complicated. My eyes need to see new things. I need to hear foreign languages, try to speak them badly and be forgiven for it. I need new smells — a baguette just out of the oven, fields of lavender or, as right now, rapeseed in full bloom, a fragrance that is faintly green and completely itself. I need to feel the sun on my skin, hear the birds, feel my lungs fill and empty, fill and empty. It is a simple proof that I am alive and getting something from the life I have chosen. I do my best to describe the feeling that it gives me and know I will never do it justice.

France, A Well-Tended Landscape

A few days earlier, before we boarded, Tim and I had been walking the banks of the Doubs through Besançon on a brilliant morning — the kind of day that makes a city feel open and generous. The river runs wild in an oxbow around the city, and though we were technically in Besançon, we felt far removed from it, the urban world somewhere behind us and above us, irrelevant. Tim is a friend from California, the kind of person who approaches everything with an almost childlike curiosity — forever noticing, forever asking why. Meanwhile Marucia and Anne, his wife, had peeled off toward the city center, drawn to the shops and cafés the way sensible people are on a beautiful morning. Tim said something on that walk that has stayed with me: France has a quality of orderliness that is not quite manicured, more like tended. Fields in their patches, trees in their rows, everything legible and calm.

Riding the towpath this afternoon, I understand what he meant. There is no ambient uncertainty here. A person on a small bike is accounted for in this landscape, the way the fields and the trees and the locks are accounted for. Everything legible and calm.

I returned to the Danielle in the late afternoon to find the crew had set up pétanque on the quay. They had told us this was coming — along with pastis, pâté and the kind of small French provisions that make an afternoon on a canal feel like something out of a film you did not know you wanted to see. There were a lot of laughs. Then another excellent dinner by An, our chef.

We are docked on the Saône tonight. Tomorrow morning we head up the Burgundy Canal.
I will ride again. This time I will bring a few of the others and show them what I found out there — the rapeseed fields, the towpath, the mistletoe perched in the trees, the joy of tapping the brakes on life and moving through it at exactly the right pace.