If you only do one thing on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, do the Arzviller boat lift. I say that as a New Zealander who came to French canals sceptical, expecting them to be a slow slog between vineyards, and got caught completely off guard by a single piece of 1960s engineering in the Vosges hills.
What the canal actually is
The Canal de la Marne au Rhin links the Marne basin in the west to the Rhine at Strasbourg, cutting across Lorraine and Alsace. It is long. The original line ran a bit over 300 km, though the modern navigable route is shorter after various rebuilds and the Moselle canalisation absorbed a chunk of the eastern section. For a cruising boater the interesting half is the eastern leg through Lorraine into Alsace, climbing over the Vosges and dropping down toward Strasbourg.
This is Freycinet-gauge country. Locks take boats up to 38.5 m long and around 1.8 m draught, which means almost any pleasure cruiser fits, and it is worth checking your boat against the Freycinet gauge canal dimensions before you book a base. We were in a 12-metre hire boat out of Lutzelbourg and never once worried about the dimensions.
The Arzviller inclined plane
Here is the headline. Climbing the Vosges escarpment used to mean a brutal flight of 17 locks over about 4 km, lifting boats 44.55 m. Working that staircase was an exhausting day, sometimes two. In 1969 the French opened the Saint-Louis-Arzviller inclined plane and replaced the whole ladder with one machine.
The thing is hard to describe until you are in it. Your boat floats into a steel trough, or caisson, 41.5 m long and 5.5 m wide. The trough then tilts and slides sideways down a 41% slope, carrying its 900 tonnes of boat and water along 108 m of track on a carriage running on 32 wheels. The descent takes about four minutes. Two counterweights and a pair of electric motors do the work, and the whole operation barely loses any water compared with cycling 17 locks.
These are the numbers I checked afterwards because I did not believe them at the time:
- 44.55 m height difference, the same drop the 17 locks once managed.
- One trough, 41.5 m by 5.5 m, weighing 900 tonnes loaded.
- A 41% incline, about 108 m long on the slope.
- Roughly four minutes for the transit itself.
- Opened 1969, the first transverse boat lift of its kind in Europe.
You sit in your boat inside the moving tank, watching the trees go past sideways, and it is faintly absurd. Our kids talked about nothing else for the rest of the holiday.
Tunnels and the climb
The canal does not let you off lightly elsewhere. East of the inclined plane the route runs through two tunnels, the longer one at Arzviller and another at Niderviller, both worked one direction at a time under VNF control. They are unlit and longer than they look from the entrance, so check your navigation lights work before you commit. We learned that the hard way, fishing a torch out of a locker mid-tunnel.
If you have never gone through a French canal tunnel, the rule is simple: wait for the green, keep dead centre, hold a steady slow speed, and do not try to overtake. The walls are closer than your nerves want them to be.
Where to stop
Lutzelbourg, just below the inclined plane, is a tidy village with a ruined castle on the hill and a couple of good places to eat. We based ourselves there. Saverne, a little further east, has a proper port right under the Rohan chateau, which is one of the better town moorings I have used anywhere in France, and the old town is a five-minute walk.
Further toward Strasbourg the canal joins the bigger commercial network and the character changes. If Strasbourg and the Rhine are your goal, plan the last stretch carefully because you start sharing water with serious freight traffic.
Practicalities a first-timer needs
You need a VNF vignette for any boat over 5 m, the same toll that covers the whole French network, priced by length and duration. Sort it before you start so you are not scrambling at the first lock. I have set out the bands and the annual-pass discount in the VNF vignette guide.
If you are hiring rather than bringing your own boat, the Lorraine and Alsace bases are well set up for it, and a week is enough to do the eastern leg properly including the inclined plane. The trade-offs between hiring and owning are worth thinking through, which I have covered in hire versus own boat on the French canals.
What the day actually looks like
People imagine canal cruising as endless lock-cranking, and on the eastern Marne au Rhin it genuinely is not, because the inclined plane swallows the section that used to be the hardest work. A typical day for us ran like this. Up early, boulangerie run on the bike for bread and croissants, cast off by half past eight before the hire fleet stirred. A few easy automated locks, a long green stretch through forest, lunch tied to a bollard while the whole canal went quiet for the lock-keepers' break, then a relaxed afternoon to the next village mooring.
The Vosges scenery does a lot of the work. This is wooded, hilly country, more alpine in feel than the open vineyard canals further west, and the light through the trees in the late afternoon is the thing I remember most. We swam in a couple of the deeper pounds on hot days, which you do at your own risk but plenty of people do.
The Alsace end, and the food
Push east past Saverne and you are properly into Alsace, which changes everything about the trip ashore. The villages turn half-timbered, the wine list swaps Burgundy reds for Riesling and Gewurztraminer, and the food gets richer and more German in character. Tarte flambee, choucroute, and the local pinot blanc became our standard evening once we crossed into Alsace.
If your route continues all the way to Strasbourg you finish in one of the best canal cities in France, with the boat moorings within reach of the cathedral and the Petite France quarter. The catch is that the final approach shares water with serious Rhine-bound freight, so the last stretch is more commercial navigation than gentle canal, and you handle it accordingly.
When to go and what it costs
The eastern Marne au Rhin works to seasonal VNF hours, longest in midsummer and shorter at the shoulders. We found late spring and early September the sweet spots: the inclined plane and tunnels were open, the hire crowds were thinner, and the weather in the Vosges was kinder than the August heat. Build your days around the lock hours and the inclined plane schedule, not around daylight.
For costs, beyond the VNF vignette you are looking at fuel, the occasional marina night for power and a hot shower, and meals ashore that you will not want to skip in Alsace. A hire boat for a week from a Lorraine base is the simplest way in for a first-timer, and a week is genuinely enough to do the eastern leg including the lift without rushing.
One last thing. The inclined plane keeps seasonal hours and occasionally closes for maintenance, so check the VNF schedule before you build a whole route around it. We met a Dutch couple who arrived the one week it was shut for repairs, and they were not happy about it.
The Arzviller lift alone justifies the trip. Everything around it, the tunnels, the Vosges scenery, the castle-town moorings, is the bonus.
