I'm very interested in doing a long distance river trip in Europe. Can I ask which route you took through those countries? Was dealing with locks an issue or did you just carry your canoe past them?
Hey, great why don't you email me? Do you have experience with kayaking? We are planning to go kayaking in the Guadalquivir in May if you are interested. Otherwise, I can share with you our itineraries (with locks) for the Danube (Passau-Bratisalva) and the Vistula (Cracow-Gdansk).
To your question. The routes we look are river only, meaning, we pick a river and we just keep going. Locks usually are not an issue, you either go pass them as you said (so pack well and get a cart 1) or you use a sluice.
The thing I would really be careful with is falls. Even 2m falls can be dangerous. We got very close (like 5m from it) to a 10m water fall in Vienna on the Neu Donau. It was not in our itinerary because under a bridge and not visible from google earth.
To your question. The routes we look are river only, meaning, we pick a river and we just keep going. Locks usually are not an issue, you either go pass them as you said (so pack well and get a cart 1) or you use a sluice.
The thing I would really be careful with is falls. Even 2m falls can be dangerous. We got very close (like 5m from it) to a 10m water fall in Vienna on the Neu Donau. It was not in our itinerary because under a bridge and not visible from google earth.
1 Couldn't resist: http://www.vanwal.nl/photos/albums/vistula-june-2013-/img_06...