Ever since Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn tied a few logs together and floated down the Mississippi, generations of Mark Twain fans have wanted to do the same.
I’ve never been on a river cruise, but the thought of meandering along inland waterways past old towns which grew up along the banks as a result of early river travel (civilization’s first highways), is very appealing.
To do so in Europe, where some of these riverside towns were settled more than a thousand years ago, sounds even more fantastic.
The Times (UK) thinks so as well. Tom Le Bas has penned a nice little article highlighting the very best European rivers to cruise and the cities to visit while doing so. A few of the recommendations are well-known, such as the Danube (between Passau and Budapest) and the Rhine (from Düsseldorf to Basel).
Le Bas, however, includes a few options that are either off the beaten path or relatively unknown. Take, for example, the Dnieper. Cruising along this Ukrainian river, one travels from Kiev all the way to the Black Sea. Or, there’s Portugal’s Douro, which flows from the town of Porto, past hundreds of miles of ancient vineyards, and on to Spain.
Huck Finn would have loved any one of these rivers–although the themes of his story would have shifted from slaves and racism to wine and women.