The Rivers Run Deep

Along the worlds great waterways, there are currents of discovery history, life, maybe even yourself.

- Lark Gould

Gotta week? Have I got a river for you! Yes, you – who runs from meeting to meeting and city to city. You – who considers dinner at 8 to be an early night. And you – as you wake up at the early edge of dawn each day whether you have to or not.

Rivers are their own masters and when you are on a river cruise, you go where the river flows. Speed slows, time goes, and history blows by like a whisper from an old friend. The phone is off, the show is on and you have nothing more to do than take it all in.

The world’s appetite for river cruising is rising rapidly: passenger loads along the great rivers of the world jumped 25 percent from 2009 to 2014, according to data from the Cruise Lines Industry Association.

And there is good reason for that. Unlike ocean cruising, river cruising is an easy hop-on-hop-off affair – a floating boutique hotel that docks each day in the center of a new city or along the banks of an extremely scenic and historic spot. For passengers, it’s like hubbing in a well-located luxury residence where you can have all the freedoms of urban wanderings and all the ease of VIP touring. You don’t have to make choices. You can have it all.

While river cruising vacations are as wide and varied as the world’s great rivers: the Mekong and Ganges, the River Quai, the Yangtze in China to the Amazon in Brazil, Europe is particularly well suited to the task. Options include the Rhone, the Rhine, the Danube, the Basel, the Loire, the Moselle, the Elbe, the Volga, the Garonne and the Seine.

The continent was tamed along these legendary waterways and visitors can take in the time lines – from famous medieval castles and to the great battle spots of the last century’s world wars – in the time it takes to sip a single glass of Champagne.

Water Under the Bridge