Two Amazingly Engineered Locks to Discover on a Barge Cruise

Discovering the beauty of Europe becomes a whole new experience when you do it from the water. The continent offers so many hidden gems that can only be revealed on one of the professional European river cruises available. From authentic European villages to one-of-a-kind feats of engineering, the inland waterways can bring you close to places you wouldn’t have been able to experience in any other way.

In the category of engineering masterpieces, the locks of Europe are an obvious example. Here are two remarkable and outstanding feats of engineering that help get boats and barges across gradients, allowing them to continue their journey on the canal that they are cruising.

Fort Augustus, Caledonian Canal, Scotland

European river cruises that go through Scotland, over the Caledonian Canal between the Capital of the Highlands Inverness and Fort William, to be specific, are bound to encounter Fort Augustus and its impressive staircase of five locks that take the 60-mile long Caledonian Canal down to Loch Ness. While the hotel barges get carefully led down through the flight of locks by the lock keepers, the passengers on these European river cruises can enjoy spectacular views of Loch Ness and observe the locks that date from the 1800s up close and personal.

Thomas Telford, a Scottish civil engineer, built the locks of Fort Augustus. He established himself as an engineer of roads and canals in the county of Shropshire before designing and building numerous infrastructure projects throughout his homeland Scotland; these included not only roads and canals but also harbours and tunnels. He became such a prolific designer that he gained the nickname "The Colossus of Roads" and was later elected as the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a position he held for 14 years until his death in 1834.

In the five consecutive locks of Fort Augustus, holidaymakers on European river cruises will be able to see the skill and craftsmanship of their maker up close. They can also spend some time exploring the village, which hosts the Caledonian Canal Heritage Centre (providing detailed information about the canal’s history) and the Clansmen Centre, where costumed guides demonstrate clan weaponry from the 17th century.

Lock Fonserannes, Canal du Midi, France

On mainland Europe, along the Canal du Midi in France, another even larger engineering masterpiece awaits tourists enjoying one of the European river cruises. The staircase lock of Fonserannes, consisting of eight ovoid lock chambers and nine gates, allows river vessels to cross a 25-metre gradient over a distance of 300 metres. Although the lock was built as an eight-rise, boats nowadays enter and exit the lower end of the flight through the side of chamber seven, leaving the eighth chamber disused.

The mastermind behind this impressive structure was Pierre-Paul Riquet (1609-1680), the Baron of Bonrepos, who created the structure in homage to his hometown. Lock Fonserannes was generally admired as a technologically advanced masterpiece at the time, and even today it has kept its appeal, being one of the most extraordinary and most visited attractions of the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

Paul Newman is the Marketing and E-Systems Executive for European Waterways. We can provide you with luxury, all-inclusive European river cruises to enjoy the sights of the country's most picturesque waterways. Cruises are offered in France, Holland, Italy and the UK.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.