“Attention ladies and gentlemen. We are approaching a very low bridge, and we kindly ask that you vacate the Sun Deck until we have passed.”

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 outside of Europe 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. Ships cross Europe’s Continental Divide, which requires a series of locks to lift the ships approximately 1,400 feet above sea level. It is quite a spectacle.

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.

Slightly under 40 feet wide, the canal’s locks 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 Main-Danube 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 characterized by 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 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.”

River cruises offer spectacular beauty. Along the river banks of the Moselle this past October, cyclists pedaled, couples walked hand-in-hand, mothers pushed strollers, and workers harvested grapes from the vineyards that climb the vertical slopes alongside the river. Trains, motorcoaches and cars rushed by on the highways and rail tracks. All the while, our ship was nearly motionless. It seemed not as if we were passing the landscape but as if it were passing us.

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.