A practical guide to exploring Europe's mighty Danube River
Snaking almost 1,800 miles from its source in Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea in Romania, the Danube is best explored slowly. Cruises, the most popular option, provide up-close encounters with the river, allowing you to see plenty in just a week or two. They don't have to be obvious, with some cracking off-beat options taking you east and into the wilds of the Lower Danube. For an adventure at your own pace, consider hiking on a network of well-developed, marked trails or cycling the long-distance Danube Cycle Path, which largely shadows the river from source to sea and takes around a month to complete. What are the benefits of cruising?
Even if you've never cruised, the Danube is great for dipping your toes into the water, as the pace is gentle, the cost fairly modest and the start and end points easily accessible. It also allows you to follow the river's course as opposed to roads or rail lines, getting a feel for its scenic diversity. Options range from week-long cruises along the 'Classic Danube', ticking off UNESCO World Heritage Wachau, Vienna and Budapest, to two-week escapades along the lesser-explored Lower Danube and into the wild heart of the Danube Delta. How easy is it to tackle the Danube Cycle Path?
You can cycle the length of the river on the Danube Cycle Path; it would take between a month and six weeks. Cicerone's The Danube Cycleway Volume 1: From the Black Forest to Budapest and Volume 2: From Budapest to the Black Sea are invaluable guides, with 1:150,000 maps for each stage, GPX files to download and information on planning.
Difficulty-wise, it's a tale of two paths. The first stage is mostly flat, off-road and well signposted. Bike hire is readily available; expect to pay around £12.50/£25 per day for a road/e-bike respectively. The second stage is more challenging because of sparse tourist infrastructure and unsurfaced sections. Can families cycle it?
With virtually no gradients, the Danube Cycle Path is a terrific choice for a family adventure, especially the first stage, in the Upper Danube. From mid-April to early October, Hooked on Cycling offers an eight-night, self-guided tour from Passau to Vienna geared to families. From £563 per person, including accommodation on a B&B basis and luggage transfers but not international travel. How easy is it to cross country borders by foot or bike?
The Danube snakes through 10 countries. Some are members of the European Union (EU) and part of the Schengen area, meaning you can freely travel between them. To cross into non-EU countries (going, say, from Croatia to Serbia), you'll need to go to a designated border crossing point, typically near a settlement, and present your passport. What are the language barriers?
Details on trails and routes in English are more readily available in Germany, Austria and Hungary. The further east you go, the scanter the information and fewer the people who speak English. Discovering these less-developed stretches of the river feels adventurous, and tours are available for direction and support. Is it safe to travel along the river?
Official advice warns against travel to Ukraine and a section of Moldova along the Ukranian border, due to military conflict and political unrest. Most Danube tours exclude these countries; the majority of the delta fans across Romania. For more information, visit the FCDO website. Riviera Travel's Grand Cruise through the Heart of Europe to the Black Sea is a 29-day boat trip through seven countries along the length of the Danube (excluding Moldova and Ukraine). From £10,349 per person, including flights and transfers, full-board dining and a drinks package.
Getting there & around:
Major gateways to the Danube include Zurich, Munich (for Passau), Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and Constanta. Direct flights operate from UK hubs with airlines including British Airways, EasyJet, Ryanair and Wizzair.
When to go: April to October are prime months for exploring the Danube. In spring and autumn, temperatures hover between 10-20C; go prepared for the odd shower. Summers can be hot, with highs of around 30C. In winter, expect cooler weather, with temperatures between 0-8C, but fewer crowds.
More info:
danube-cycle-path.com
The Danube: A Journey Upriver from the Black Sea to the Black Forest, £12.99
The Danube by Nick Thorpe, £12.99 Published in the April 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Geographic
2 hours ago
- National Geographic
Find a new reverence for Rome on a thousand-year-old pilgrimage to the capital
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). It's holy week and music is rising from the Chiesa di Santa Maria. First comes the slow sigh of baroque strings, then a wash of operatic harmony as a soprano and alto plunge into the opening lines of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. Outside, a blood-orange sun is slipping behind the sage hills surrounding Vetrella, throwing a square of sunlight onto the church's frescoed walls: a honeyed beam that writes life into the eyes of every painted saint and martyr. I'm coming to the end of my first day on the Via Francigena and already I'm getting a sense of the trail's strange power — though I'm 12 miles closer to Rome than I was this morning, I appear to have stepped further back in time. In many ways, it stands to reason. After all, I've spent the morning tracing one of Lazio's ancient holloways — the sunken roads etched by the Etruscans sometime between 800 and 300 BCE and deepened over the centuries by the footfall of Roman legions, Frankish knights and modern-day pilgrims. After the concert, the congregation spills onto the lawn, where I get talking to blue-eyed Tiziano, who's travelled from the nearby town of Bracciano to be here. 'The springs surrounding this place made it a site of pilgrimage long before the church was built,' he explains, 'and yet most people pass it by without even noticing. For me, it's an overlooked masterpiece.' The same could be said of the Via Francigena itself — a quiet backroad compared to the bustling pilgrim highway that's Spain's Camino de Santiago. The key difference is that the former didn't begin life as a pilgrimage trail, but rather evolved into one, its network of roads originally serving as arteries between the Roman Empire and northern territories like Britannia. The sunken roads etched by the Etruscans sometime between 800 and 300 BCE were deepened over the centuries by the footfall of Roman legions, Frankish knights and modern-day pilgrims. Photograph by Gilda Bruno By the Middle Ages, any pellegrino (pilgrim) worth their communion wafer could be found traipsing towards Rome, where the spirit of St Peter was said to suffuse every root and rock. For the next few days, I'll be following in the footsteps of one such wayfarer: 10th-century archbishop Sigeric the Serious, no doubt a notorious party animal. In 990 CE, he travelled some 1,200 miles from Canterbury Cathedral to St Peter's Basilica — by way of France and Switzerland — to collect his official garment from the Pope. Handily, he documented his return trip, providing a blueprint for today's official Via Francigena route. Tackled in full it's a mammoth 100-day trek, so many pilgrims choose to walk key stages. My own journey takes in the last 60 or so miles to Rome, a five-day hike through cavernous valleys, emerald forests and rarely visited hilltop towns. The route is liberating in its simplicity — so long as I make it to my B&B each night, I should reach the Eternal City just in time for Good Friday. The wandering monk Spring is a good time to be on the open road. Lazio is in the midst of a great transformation, the region's cobbled towns brimming with early artichokes, its boulder-strewn woodlands carpeted with anemone and pink cyclamen. Striking out towards the hilltop town of Sutri the following morning, I pass a gaunt, olive-wreathed farmhouse. The year's first swallows glide in and out, their long migration finally at an end. It's here I meet Brother Ambrose Okema, a Benedictine monk undertaking the Via Francigena by bike. For him, there's little difference between we pilgrims and the birds dancing above our heads, for we're all stirred to wander by the same invisible force. 'It's a call from within,' he says, beating a pulse on his chest. Dressed in Lycra and sat astride a gravel bike, he's a far cry from your stereotypical wandering monk: the solitary, staff-bearing pilgrim whose effigy graces every waymark along the Via Francigena. His companion Victor Hernandez, a stubbled Puerto Rican, shows me footage from morning Mass on his phone; a priest in Tyrian purple robes using a garden spray pump to douse the congregation with holy water. 'You've gotta love Italy,' Victor says, beaming. The last 60 or so miles to Rome are a five-day hike through cavernous valleys, emerald forests and rarely visited hilltop towns. Photograph by Gilda Bruno Tackled in full the Via Francigena is a mammoth 100-day trek, so many pilgrims choose to walk key stages. Photograph by Gilda Bruno We walk together for some time, descending into the Valle di Tinozza, where a jade stream guides us past rockfaces honeycombed with Etruscan tombs. Conversation flows easily on the road, and soon Ambrose is recounting his life story: the childhood in war-torn Uganda, his move to a monastery in America. I get the sense that this pair's pilgrimage is as much an act of friendship as it is of faith. 'I did the Camino de Santiago solo,' Victor tells me, 'so I knew I didn't want to do this trip alone. After meeting Ambrose at his monastery, it made sense to do it together.' That evening, with 14 miles under my belt, I drink a Campari in Sutri's main square, its baroque fountain trickling sapphire. Beside me, an elderly man with thick-framed spectacles is filling his pipe, eyes cast skyward as the rain clouds part. A passing friend berates him for staying out in such conditions. 'La pioggia lava tutto,' the smoker replies — rain cleans everything. His words are still with me two days later. They echo something Sigeric and his fellow medieval pilgrims must also have felt to be true — that in enduring the elements they were somehow cleansing themselves. Call it purification by suffering. From their howls of laughter, it's clear English pilgrims Maris Waterhouse and Sarah Thompson have no intention of suffering their way to Rome. 'We're not religious at all,' Maris tells me as we fall into step entering Insugherata Natural Reserve, a 1,800-acre patchwork of forest and farmland bordering Rome. 'Most of our lives are spent in the same routine — but this is something different.' With comically good timing, at that moment, a very large, very hairy wild boar emerges from the forest. I fleetingly wonder if he's here to enact revenge for last night's dinner, pappardelle pasta served with ragù di cinghiale, but he simply raises his snout, sniffs the air and trots off. Our friend's habitat slowly recedes, giving way to glimmering shopfronts and warm-lit cafes — every table adorned with some limp-limbed pilgrim unable to move another inch. Their reluctance is understandable, as the Via Francigena has one more challenge in store: Monte Mario, Rome's tallest hill. Praying for divine intervention, I crawl up its cobbled back; past silvery olives and flat-topped pines swaying in the afternoon breeze. I spot two peregrine falcons circling overhead, and then, quite without warning, catch sight of something I'd nearly forgotten: St Peter's Basilica, its gilded dome a second sun above the city's sweep of ancient spires. The final approach is like a dream, baroque avenues heavy with orange blossom giving way to the Renaissance splendour of St Peter's Square. Photograph by Gilda Bruno The final approach is like a dream, baroque avenues heavy with orange blossom giving way to the Renaissance splendour of St Peter's Square. At this point, Sigeric would likely have commenced the obligatory circuit of Rome's other holy places — a pilgrimage within a pilgrimage. But after a few moments of gazing at the basilica's gold-encrusted interior, Sarah's earlier words start ringing in my ears like a command: 'All I want from a trip like this is a long walk and a good meal at the end of it.' Within the hour I'm sat outside La Quercia, an osteria in Monteforte, stretching my legs beneath a table set with a bowl of smoky, parmesan-dusted pasta amatriciana. Dinner and a well-deserved rest. Some pleasures truly are eternal. UTracks' 10-day, self-guided Orvieto to Rome tour costs £950 per person, including B&B accommodation, meals and luggage transfers. This story was created with the support of UTracks. Published in the September 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
No holiday for 42 million EU workers: Where is holiday the most unaffordable in Europe?
In 2023, 15% of employed people in the EU were unable to afford a one-week holiday away from home. While this percentage might not appear very high at first glance, it represents around 42 million workers. In each of the EU's "Big Four" economies (Germany, France, Spain and Italy), over 5 million workers were unable to afford a week-long holiday according to Eurostat data published by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). 'Taking a break with family or friends is important for our physical and mental health, and it is a basic part of the European social contract,' said ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch, criticising the situation. Holiday poverty among workers continues to rise Holiday poverty among workers is on the rise across the EU, marking the third consecutive annual increase. In 2022, 40.5 million employed people reported being unable to afford a one-week holiday away from home. That number rose to 41.5 million in 2023—an increase of over one million workers in just a year. The share of affected workers grew from 14% to 15%. 'The findings are the result of an increasingly unequal economy, in which workers are forced to give up their holidays due to rising costs for accommodation, transport and food, combined with declining purchasing power and speculation', the ETUC stated. Related The cost of love: Europe's most expensive and cheapest cities for a date Cost of living: Which are the cheapest and most expensive countries in Europe? East-West gap in holiday affordability for workers The data reveals a strong disparity in holiday affordability across the EU, particularly between Eastern/Southern Europe and Western/Northern Europe. Romania tops the list, with 32% of workers unable to afford a one-week holiday. Close behind are Hungary (26%), Bulgaria (24%), Portugal and Cyprus (both 23%), and Slovakia (22%). The Nordic countries—Finland, Sweden and Denmark—along with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Slovenia, report the lowest levels of holiday poverty, ranging between 5% and 7%. Czechia, Austria, and Belgium reported holiday poverty rates at or below 10%. Despite their economic weight, even the EU's largest economies report concerning levels of holiday poverty. Among the EU's Big Four, Spain (18%) and Italy (17%) exceed the EU average of 15%. France (12%) and Germany (11%) fall below the average, but both still remain above 10%. EU's Big Four: Over 5 million workers in each country can't afford a holiday Absolute figures speak louder than percentages. Over 5 million workers in each of the EU's Big Four were unable to afford a holiday in 2023. In Italy, the number stood at 6.2 million, followed by 5.8 million in Germany, 5.6 million in Spain, and 5.1 million in France. Over 3.5 million workers in Romania and Poland also couldn't afford a holiday. This figure was more than 1.5 million in Hungary and Portugal. In Austria and the Netherlands, over 550,000 workers couldn't afford even a one-week holiday despite being employed or having a business. 'After working hard all year, it is the least working people should be able to expect to afford and should not be allowed to become a luxury for the few,' Lynch said. 'However, these figures show that Europe has a quality jobs emergency and that our social contract is continuing to crumble as the result of growing economic inequality.' Related China rare earth exports to the US surge 660% after trade agreement The Big Question: Do companies need to re-evaluate how they set climate goals? Is holiday poverty linked to income? There is a moderately strong negative correlation between the share of workers who cannot afford a one-week holiday away from home and annual net earnings. This means that as net earnings increase, the proportion of workers unable to afford such a holiday tends to decrease. However, since the correlation is moderate, it also indicates that in some countries, this relationship is not strong or does not follow the overall trend as closely. For example, Ireland (€43,897) had one of the highest annual net earnings in the EU in 2023, yet holiday poverty remains comparatively high. In contrast, Slovenia has a low level of holiday poverty among workers, even though the incomes are similar to countries where more people struggle to afford a holiday. Related Win for the crypto industry: US passed the first major bill to regulate digital assets Strong correlation between workers and general population By comparing workers (aged 15-64) and the general population aged 16 and over, Euronews Business found a strong correlation: the higher the rate of workers who cannot afford a holiday, the higher it tends to be in the overall population. In 2023, among the general population, the share of people unable to afford a one-week holiday ranged from 11% in Luxembourg to 60% in Romania, while the EU average stood at 29%. This suggests that the rate among the general population is nearly double that of workers. Experts speaking to Euronews Business had noted that differences between countries are largely tied to the strength of their economies. The level of disposable income plays a key role, as it directly affects people's ability to spend on holidays—particularly when looking at figures for the general population. The ETUC calls on national governments to fully implement the Minimum Wage Directive and urges the European Commission to ensure that the Quality Job Package due this year includes legislation to rebalance the economy—making respect for collective bargaining a condition for access to public contracts. Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Escape the crowds at Versailles with a trip to Vincennes, Paris' quieter chateau
PARIS (AP) — For visitors to France overwhelmed by the crowds at Versailles, the Paris region offers a calmer chateau experience: The fortress of Vincennes, a medieval royal residence with the tallest keep in Europe that once held renowned figures such as the Marquis de Sade. The massive fortress east of Paris, just 15 minutes from the city center by metro, immerses visitors in history as soon as they walk through the drawbridge. The castle is much older than Versailles and closer to Paris, local guide Cindy Smili-Yesli said. 'It's a fairly quiet castle," she said. "The visiting conditions are much more pleasant. Here, you can really take a close look at every detail of the decor in the keep." Vincennes welcomes up to 145,000 visitors a year, when over eight million visit Versailles. Europe's tallest keep The Chateau of Vincennes was first built in the second part of the 14th century, as the Hundred Years War was raging between the kingdoms of France and England, on the location of a royal manor that was used as a hunting base in the nearby woods. French King Charles V, who ascended the throne in 1364, chose to make it his residence. The immense 52-meter (171-feet) keep was meant to show the extent of France's power. 'It has been a powerful symbol of the royal monarchy since the mid-14th century,' Smili-Yesli said. But Vincennes was also a symbol of an historic English success against France. Henry V of England and his court moved into the chateau for some time after his successful military campaign, in accordance with the 1420 Treaty of Troyes. Henry V died at Vincennes in 1422. He was 35. 'The legend of Vincennes says that his body was reduced to ashes in the castle's kitchens, and his bones were recovered,' Smili-Yesli said. Famous figures imprisoned From the 15th century, the keep housed a prison. Famous captives included future King of France Henri IV, accused of plotting, writer and philosopher Denis Diderot, and the Marquis de Sade, known for his writings on sex. 'The Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the keep of Vincennes in the mid-to-late 18th century because of his writings and his actions as a libertine," Smili-Yesli said. "He was originally held on the first floor of the keep. But as he did not get along well with one of his cousins, the Count of Mirabeau, the jailers, to punish him, moved him down to the ground floor into a much less pleasant cell, subject to cold and damp.' Many common law prisoners were also imprisoned at Vincennes, including women, especially during a series of scandals in 1679 to 1680 involving poisoning and witchcraft. Some graffiti left by the captives can still be seen on the stone walls. A Gothic Holy Chapel Facing the keep, the spectacular Holy Chapel, built in the Gothic style, features stunning stained glass windows from the mid-16th century which depict the Apocalypse through various spectacular scenes. The Sun King later wished to move further away from Paris, which had been hostile to him during that period. He went on to build a palace in Versailles, west of the French capital, and left Vincennes with his court in 1682.
