After a quick flight over from Frankfurt, I found myself in the friendly city of Nuremberg, where I collected my luggage and was whisked by the pre-arranged shoreside transfer service en route to AmaWaterways’ AmaLyra, which lies docked along the Main-Danube Canal.

There was another river cruise ship docked just downstream from AmaLyra, but it was clear that the 2009-built AmaWaterways ship was the clear aesthetic winner.  Indeed, the AmaLyra has a strikingly elegant profile that is designed as much to soothe as to impress.

Stepping onboard couldn’t have been easier. My transfer van pulled up at the dock next to the ship, I got out, and within mere minutes I’d exchanged my passport for my stateroom key.  But there was a surprise in store there, too: I found myself the fortunate recipient of one of the ship’s premier Junior Suites.  And at a generous 255 square feet, it knocked my socks off.