{"id":20080,"date":"2019-05-24T08:04:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T08:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/arzviller-50th-anniversary\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:04:10","slug":"arzviller-50th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/blog\/arzviller-50th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Boat lift of Arzviller celebrates its 50th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"\nLush and unspoilt, welcoming and natural, with a powerful and iconic historic heritage, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/alsace-ardennes\/\">waterways between Alsace and the Ardennes<\/a> offer untamed landscapes and unexpected discoveries. Immerse yourself in a way of life that\u2019s festive, friendly and full of surprises\u2026 and don\u2019t miss one of the eastern canals\u2019 finest treasures: the Saint Louis Arzviller boat lift, which is 50 years old this year.\n\n<hr \/>\n\n<h2><strong>Vital statistics of a very special kind of lift <\/strong><\/h2>\n<strong>Name:<\/strong> the Saint Louis Arzviller\u00a0boat lift\n\n<strong>Nickname:<\/strong> the boat lift\n\n<strong>Date of Birth:<\/strong> 27 January 1969\n\n<strong>Contractor:<\/strong> Voies Navigables de France (VNF \u2013 French Waterways Authority)\n\n<strong>Altitude difference:<\/strong> 44.55 metres\n\n<strong>Address:<\/strong> Rue du plan inclin\u00e9, 57820 Saint-Louis\n\n<strong>Distinguishing features:<\/strong> Ministry of Culture and Communication\u2019s 20th-century Heritage Award\n\n<hr \/>\n\n<h2><strong>An ingenious project \u2013 and it\u2019s not a wind-up! <\/strong><\/h2>\nIt took four years of work before the Saint Louis Arzviller boat lift finally replaced the 17 traditional locks in the \u2018Vall\u00e9e des \u00e9clusiers\u2019 (Lock-Keepers\u2019 Valley), which has now been converted into an 8.2 km Green Cycleway.\n\n<strong>What\u2019s so great about it? <\/strong>Instead of taking a whole day to get through the various locks, it now takes less than five minutes of your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/\">canal boat cruise.<\/a>\n\n<strong>How does it work? <\/strong>There are several types of boat lift, each with its own way of working. On this 50-year-old jewel in the eastern canals, the canal boat is carried in a caisson. It climbs or descends a slope on rails and it\u2019s the transverse structure that makes this boat lift such a unique focus of interest in Europe.\n\nThe equipment is kept in top condition. In February 2019 the hydraulic jacks were overhauled and one of the two winches was replaced. That was a big project, but it will help to make sure that the boat lift will last for many more years.\n\n<hr \/>\n\n<h2><strong>Happy Birthday!<\/strong><\/h2>\n<strong>Starting point:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/alsace-ardennes\/lutzelbourg\/\">Locaboat\u2019s Lutzelbourg Base<\/a>. Then cruise westwards along the Canal de la Marne au Rhin to get to this famous boat lift for its birthday celebrations.\n\n<strong>Programme <\/strong>\n<ul>\n \t<li>Entertainments will be on offer throughout the tourist season, from 1 April to 31 October. A long weekend of celebrations will mark the anniversary from 24 to 26 May.<\/li>\n \t<li>Throughout the three days there will be fascinating exhibitions about the boat lift, its equipment and the port of Strasbourg as well as many other tributes.<\/li>\n \t<li>From 25 to 26 May, entry to the boat lift will be free and tour boats will offer descents of the boat lift for a small charge.<\/li>\n \t<li>There will also be entertainment for all the family. The special Mothers\u2019 Day photo booth is bound to be a favourite, and there will be plenty of musical entertainment as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<strong>Special offers:<\/strong> Partner restaurants and accommodation are offering special deals at budget prices.\n\n<hr \/>\n\n<h2><strong>\u00a0Stay\u2026 just a little bit longer <\/strong><\/h2>\nBefore you set off again on your P\u00e9nichette<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boats\/\">river yacht<\/a>, there are a few things you might want to check out. Just 200 metres from the boat lift, you could try alpine sledging: it\u2019s great fun, sliding through the trees for 500 metres with amazing views over the lake. Or if you\u2019re an art-lover, you could take an hour-and-a-half walk to the stunning medieval Lutzelbourg castle that overlooks the valley. It\u2019s not far from our ideally-located base.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lush and unspoilt, welcoming and natural, with a powerful and iconic historic heritage, the waterways between Alsace and the Ardennes offer untamed landscapes and unexpected discoveries. Immerse yourself in a way of life that\u2019s festive, friendly and full of surprises\u2026 and don\u2019t miss one of the eastern canals\u2019 finest treasures: the Saint Louis Arzviller boat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[345],"tags":[349,362],"class_list":["post-20080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bucket-list","tag-alsace","tag-lutzelbourg"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20082,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20080\/revisions\/20082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}