Water is always the center of attention. Whether it’s a backyard fountain, a hot tub on the deck, a mountain lake or the ocean, the chairs face toward the water. On its course between Switzerland and The Netherlands, the Rhine River is no exception; it is the focal point wherever it flows as it passes through Germany and France on its way to the North Sea. A couple of years ago, we sailed up the Rhine on a river cruise.

It was the summer of our 30th wedding anniversary. We started planning the trip over a year ahead with longtime friends who were celebrating their 25th anniversary. We studied itineraries, looked up cruise-line reviews, watched Rick Steves videos, checked out books from the library on the places we would be visiting, navigated with Google Earth to get a virtual look at our destinations and discussed travel wardrobes.

The preparation was an event of its own, requiring hours of eating, drinking and laughing with our traveling companions, and we took it very seriously. Our monthly planning sessions made the trip an epic voyage.

All of our planning ignored the river itself, though. Cruising on the Rhine is traveling in the wake of the countless voyages made by settlers, travelers and traders dating back to the earliest inhabitants of the area. Everyone came either by the river or to the river, clustering and thriving along its banks like trees and vegetation seeking water.

The remnants of ancient inhabitants along the riverbanks are intriguing, inspiring romantic visions of castles, knights and princesses, or chilling thoughts of river pirates and invading hordes. There are quaint villages with winding cobblestone streets, fairy-tale houses and market squares around steepled churches, all in the shadow of imposing but crumbling castles. There are walled fortresses along the banks, built to defend from attack or to stop traffic and impose tolls on all who navigated the river. Gnarled vineyards cling to the steep, sunny banks, taking advantage of the proximity to the water to irrigate the grapes and ship the wine.

The river was a source of defense and income. It was a dividing line, defining the barbarians and the civilized. It was a lifeline, carrying goods and services to the buyers and sellers long before trucks and trains. The ways of doing business and monitoring the river have changed, but it is by no means just a tourist site or an outdoor museum. It’s teeming with life.

The Rhine we saw aboard our river cruise ship had plenty of modern shipping and manufacturing along its shore, interspersed with the remnants of medieval history.  We didn’t see those parts of the river advertised in the travel books, and we probably slipped past much more than we knew while we were tucked away in our cabins for the night. It’s a modern waterway, and unlike many of the cathedrals and tourist attractions we visited, is still in constant use.

Our cabin was on the lowest deck, so it was riding down in the water. It wasn’t noticeable, except that our window was high on the cabin wall. We woke up one night to the sound of gushing water underneath us. Were we sinking? No alarms were sounding. It was dark, so we couldn’t see what was going on by peering on tippy-toe out our river-level window . The next day we realized that we had been going through a lock.

As we made our way upriver, we needed several locks to make the climb. We went through some during the day, and we were able to watch the process. The captain steered our ship into the narrow lock compartment, which was almost exactly the width of our boat. We were inches from the sides. When the door was closed, the compartment filled with water until our boat came up to the level of the next  part of the river. That was the rushing sound below us. From inside the boat, it felt like emerging from a tomb. We had new respect for our captain after seeing him steer our boat, leaning out over the side to see the clearance, into the narrow compartment.

We loved the ports where we disembarked–the tours and the history, the unique regional foods and drinks (read: beer) and the people we met. The time on the river itself, though, was a huge part of the trip. Morning coffee or afternoon wine on the outdoor deck chairs, watching the boat traffic and the scenery go by, or even just reading or napping, lulled by the gentle motion of the boat on the river, was the perfect balance to our land excursions.

Along the way, we  sailed by families camping in tents along the shore, swimmers and picnickers playing on the beach, and fisherman on the banks or in smaller boats. We passed loaded barges and other cruise ships. We shared the river with them as people have been doing forever. Floating through the region on the river connected us to the life of the place in a deeper way than our tours and history lessons could. We were part of  the timeless flow of the River Rhine.