River cruises
 

Is there a way to do the rivers of Europe without doing commercial cruises?

Basically you can rent space on a floating hotel, you can rent a boat or you can buy a boat. Each of those require a commercial transaction.

Alternatively you can "do" the rivers' banks on cars, trains or bicycles. Basic commercial arrangements as above.

Which ideas interest you and which rivers (and canals) are you attracted to?

You could rent a gypsey caravan to follow the Liffy of course.

People have been known to kayak down the Rhine. No doubt you could do the same on other rivers.


There are companies who offer you the chance to cycle along a river during the day and to sleep on a boat at night, or stay on the boat all day if you don't want to cycle that day.

Companies like Le Boat offer boats for hire on certain sections of rivers.

One thing you need to be aware of though is that rivers in Europe are often major freight highways. Freight boats have priority over everything else, and they cannot always see small vessels easily. It is up to the small vessel to get out of the way, and not stray into freight lanes. It can be a scary experience for the uninitiated.

Beside the cruises, there are scheduled boats where you can only ride a small leg, like in local trains or buses:

Rhine river:
Rheineck - Rorschach - Konstanz - Schaffhausen
Rheinfall - Eglisau - Rheinsfelden
Laufenburg - Saeckingen
Rheinfelden - Basel - Weil am Rhein
Breisach - Colmar
Mainz - Cologne - Duesseldorf
Koblenz - Cochem

Elbe river:
Seusslitz - Dresden - Bad Schandau - Teschen

Danube river:
Deggendorf - Passau - Linz- Vienna - Bratislava - Budapest