A luxury river cruise on the Saône

Flowing 300 miles from the Vosges mountains, the Saône is the quintessential French waterway. Both gentle and genteel, it ambles past poplar forests, moors, and vineyards, grazing Charolais cattle, and colorful villages where residents sip café au lait in centuries-old squares. Also dotting the Saône’s environs are countless churches, both august and humble, giving the river an almost biblical feel. Christianity was – and is – still very present here. One of its strongest bastions was in pretty Cluny in the 10th century, when the village’s Benedictine abbey was granted rare freedom from local authority. It became the most prestigious monastic institution in Europe and the world’s largest church (until completion of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, but that’s another story). Yet even with a grand credential such as this, the Saône today remains a smaller, quieter river. Not quite a fleuve, according to the French, but a rivière...