All the navigable waterways
Canal, river & lake boating holiday destinations
On this page, you will find information about most waterways proposed on our cruise itineraries including the canals, rivers and lakes.
You'll find the total number of locks and lock sizes, the sources and mouths of the rivers, construction dates, special features and many more interesting facts.
We've listed the inland waterways which are part of the cruise routes and itineraries on either the hotel barge tours or the self-drive vacations.
The information has been specially compiled for Hotels Afloats by Alister Aldridge (MA History, MA2 Digital Humanities) during his internship with us in 2022. Alister has collected data from many sources including Wikipedia and created a purpose-built XML file format for waterways. All the information has been translated into French and is available on our French website Vacances Fluvial in the Voies Navigables section.
Photographs have been collected and edited from private collections, Adobe Stock under licence and other sources which are credited.