France is having an unsettled autumn. From aboard the hotel barge Madeleine in Alsace, however, I have found a country that remains calm, beautiful and deeply itself. Student protests in Strasbourg, Paris and other French cities, a Rhine too shallow for some river cruise ships, threatened canal closures in Alsace and flooding in Provence have produced very different experiences for travelers — and a reminder that France has been through difficult times before.

Prologue: A Question From Toronto

It was during this trip that I heard from a traveler in Toronto who has barged with me a few times. He is curious and well informed, and his note arrived as we were experiencing this unsettled moment in France. “I’ve got to inquire about your adventure in Paris during this turmoil,” he wrote. “Bringing back some old memories of my own 1968 barricade and tear gas encounter with the CRS (French National Police).”

We are primarily in Strasbourg, not Paris, and I told him it was an exciting time to be here. We had seen massive police brigades and an equal number of protesters, but very little action on either side. In the two days before we boarded our barge, our hotel television coverage had shown fires and violence elsewhere in France, but we saw none of it in Strasbourg. I wrote to him, quoting the opening of a Washington Post opinion piece: “Move over Italy, Greece. The sick man of Europe is now France.” Then I asked, “What’s your prediction? Candidates aren’t promising reasonable changes.”

His reply was reassuring, based on his own experience of having endured the events of May 1968, when student protests that began at Nanterre University outside Paris escalated into one of the largest political and social upheavals in modern French history. “France will always be the same; resistant to changes and amazingly arrogant,” he wrote. He then asked whether we had stopped in Paris before flying to Strasbourg, or flown through Germany or Switzerland and taken the train. His words stayed with me as I looked at what was actually unfolding around us: real tensions, certainly, but also full cafés, busy streets and a France that continued to welcome travelers.

Act I: Turmoil, at a Distance

We arrived in Strasbourg on Tuesday, October 6, as student protests over conditions in French schools were taking place in Strasbourg, Paris and other cities. We stayed two nights at Hotel Rohan before boarding the barge. The demonstrations contributed to our arriving too late for a scheduled canal sightseeing cruise that was part of the barge program, but the cruise manager arranged for us to take the excursion the following day. It was a minor inconvenience and an unexpected start to what has otherwise been a beautiful trip: Strasbourg’s half-timbered buildings, medieval streets, cafés and magnificent cathedral seemed as welcoming as ever.

Just a few streets from our hotel, however, we met river cruise passengers whose holidays had been disrupted much more substantially — not by demonstrations but by the extraordinary drought affecting Europe’s waterways. Low water has disrupted some Rhine river cruises, while the Canal de la Marne au Rhin has remained navigable for our journey, at least for now. Farther south, heavy rain and flood debris have temporarily affected the Canal du Rhône à Sète. These waterways are not far apart on a map, but this autumn they are telling very different stories.

Scene: ‘Impassable’

Strasbourg lies beside the Rhine, one of Europe’s busiest commercial waterways and one of its most popular river cruise routes. During our visit, we encountered several couples traveling on river cruise ships, so naturally I asked how their journeys were going. “How’s the Rhine?” I asked one couple. “Impassable,” came the reply.

Technically, that is not true of the entire river. Navigation restrictions vary by location and vessel, and some river cruise ships can continue sailing where others cannot. But for passengers whose itinerary has been broken by ship swaps and long coach transfers, the distinction can seem academic.

Later, at Café Dreher on Place Gutenberg, we spoke with another couple whose Emerald Cruises Amsterdam-to-Basel sailing had become something quite different from the holiday they booked. They said they had boarded their ship in Amsterdam and enjoyed a short stretch of navigation before being transferred by motorcoach the following morning: three hours to Heidelberg, then another two hours to Strasbourg, where they were scheduled to board another ship for the journey toward Basel. According to the passengers, Emerald offered a future-cruise voucher worth 45 percent of their fare. “We won’t be coming back,” they told us.

I have not independently reviewed the full circumstances of their sailing or Emerald’s communication with them, but their account illustrates a challenge confronting river cruise operators in a low-water year. A company may keep an itinerary moving through ship swaps, motorcoaches and revised ports, yet passengers may still feel they did not receive the holiday they purchased — especially when they paid to unpack once and watch Europe’s landscapes unfold from the water.

Act II: Compensation and Consequence

The contrast with another passenger’s experience is revealing. In our September article, What The 2026 Drought Taught Us About Choosing A River Cruise, one reader described an Avalon Waterways journey from Budapest to Amsterdam. The first week involved motorcoach transportation and stays in upscale, centrally located hotels rather than sailing, but the passenger eventually cruised through Holland and received a 50 percent refund. “Very fair compensation by Avalon,” the reader commented.

These are individual accounts, not a definitive comparison of Emerald’s and Avalon’s policies. Still, they show why the form of compensation can matter as much as its percentage: A future-cruise voucher asks a disappointed customer to travel with the company again, while a refund returns money for an experience that was not fully delivered. Travelers should consider not only the itinerary and ship but also the line’s contingency plan and guest options if the river becomes unnavigable. For a broader look at cruise-line protections and the possible role of travel insurance, see When Low Water Disrupts a River Cruise: Which Cruise Lines Protect Passengers Best, and Can Travel Insurance Help?

Act III: A Different Story on the Canal

Just a short distance from the Rhine, our experience aboard Madeleine has been entirely different. We boarded Thursday for our hosted hotel-barge journey on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, traveling through Alsace toward Saverne. We have enjoyed beautiful scenery, overcast mornings, sunny afternoons and some welcome rain after an exceptionally dry summer — and the canal has remained navigable throughout.

That may sound surprising given the difficulties on the nearby Rhine, but canals and rivers face different challenges. The Rhine is a free-flowing river whose navigation depths can fall dramatically during drought. The Canal de la Marne au Rhin is an engineered waterway with locks and managed water supplies that help maintain navigable depths, and hotel barges generally have shallower drafts than larger river cruise vessels.

Canals are hardly immune to drought, however. Every lock passage uses water, and when reservoir supplies diminish, Voies navigables de France, or VNF, France’s national authority responsible for managing most of the country’s navigable waterways, must decide how to conserve what remains. In its October 9 network-status bulletin, VNF reported that progressively depleted reserves had created a critical situation around Strasbourg and warned of a possible suspension of navigation beginning October 19 on the BPV, the Canal de la Marne au Rhin and the Canal de la Sarre. VNF described the prospect as unprecedented for the territory. Our journey aboard Madeleine will be completed before that date, but the warning underscores how quickly conditions can change. At this moment, the canal’s managed system and the barge’s shallow draft have produced a very different experience.

Act IV: Too Little Water, Too Much

In less than two weeks, I will host a second hotel-barge trip, this time from Sète to Arles, departing October 22. There, the problem has been precisely the opposite. Heavy rainfall beginning September 29 brought flooding to parts of southern France and prompted temporary navigation closures on the Canal du Rhône à Sète.

VNF notices issued after the flooding reported that trees and large debris had entered the navigation channel near Carnon, Palavas and Les Aresquiers, requiring surveys and clearance work. By the time of VNF’s weekly Rhône-Saône bulletin covering October 9 through 15, conditions had improved from the earlier temporary closures, but they were not entirely normal: VNF listed a 1.60-meter depth restriction between the Vidourle crossing and the entrance to Sète from October 5 through an estimated October 19. Our October 22 hotel-barge departure follows that estimated end date, but normal navigation will depend on the latest VNF information and conditions on the waterway. In Alsace, canals are threatened by a lack of water; in Provence, sections of canal have been temporarily closed because of an excess of it. Neither situation has disrupted our hosted journeys so far, but both demonstrate how dependent inland navigation remains on weather and on the work required to keep waterways safe.

Interlude: France Has Been Through Worse

As we finished a beautiful eight-mile bike ride from Saverne in the direction we will cruise tomorrow, we met 87-year-old Marise Helene on the promenade. She told us that her two given names were the first names of France’s first two female aviators. More important, she remembered a far more perilous France: As a child, she had to hide from the Nazis as they machine-gunned houses. She also remembered American troops arriving to liberate the area, bringing chocolate and chewing gum.

Her recollection put the day’s headlines in perspective. France is facing political arguments, labor disputes, protests, debt concerns and extraordinary weather, but it has endured darker and more dangerous times. The resilience my Toronto friend described in his own way is not an abstraction here. It is part of the living memory of people we meet along the canal.

Intermission: A Flame in Saverne

That evening in Saverne, the waiter poured Calvados over our dessert — an apple-and-cinnamon creation reminiscent of tarte flambée — and set it aflame. For a few seconds, the blue-gold flame was unexpectedly beautiful. Then it subsided, leaving something warm and delectable behind. I could not help thinking of the country around us: the tension on television, the student demonstrations in Strasbourg, Paris and other cities, the anxieties about debt and the weather’s disruption of its waterways. France has known sparks of unrest before, and sometimes far worse than sparks. Yet here, beside the canal, the evening ended with good food, conversation and the quiet satisfaction of being exactly where we were. The demonstrations had affected one excursion, the cruise manager rearranged it and we continued our journey.

Act V: The Canal in Sunlight

Tomorrow, we begin our journey through one of the most beautiful stretches of this canal, from Saverne to Lutzelbourg. Marucia and I rode it today on our bicycles, and it was stunning: Sunlight dappled through the trees and reflected from the water, turning an ordinary canal path into a scene that seemed made for slow travel. The locks are operating, the barge is moving and the scenery is lovely.

I have been traveling in France for nearly 50 years, going back to when I was a young man cycling through the country with panniers on either side of my bicycle. I loved the freedom of exploring this beautiful country then, and I still do. I have been hosting hotel-barge trips in France since 2015, and while there have been occasional delays, maintenance issues and even a scrape along the Burgundy Canal, I have never had a hosted barge trip stopped by water levels. This year’s conditions are a reminder that flexibility is always part of traveling inland waterways.

Epilogue: The View From Madeleine

The conversations we had in Strasbourg put a human face on the issue. For the Emerald passengers we met, a ship swap and a 45 percent future-cruise voucher were not enough. For the Avalon traveler, an itinerary that replaced a week of cruising with hotels and buses, together with a 50 percent refund, was a fair outcome. Neither reaction is unreasonable. Before booking, travelers should ask about a line’s low-water contingency plan, how much motorcoach substitution or how many ship swaps could occur before guests may cancel or rebook, and whether compensation would be a refund, future credit or a combination of both.

Had I not been following the news — and, more importantly, listening to fellow travelers — this might have seemed like an entirely ordinary, if exceptionally enjoyable, week in France. Their experiences are a reminder that Europe’s waterways can produce very different stories, even for people visiting the same place at the same time. For now, ours is the happier kind: the canal is open, the barge is moving, tomorrow’s journey awaits and France remains as beautiful as ever.