World's greatest canals you can take a ship through: Six of the best

CORINTH CANAL, GREECE

Only slim vessels can sail through the Corinth Canal because it is just 21.3 metres wide. Built in the 19th century, it was first considered in Roman times as a time-saving route between the Gulf of Corinth in the Adriatic and the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean; sailing around the Peloponnese adds about 343 kilometres to the journey. The 6.4-kilometre Corinth Canal was dug through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, making the former Peloponnese peninsula an island. Its spectacular steep cliff walls rise as high as 63 metres and today it's either used by small-ship cruise lines such as Seabourn, Silversea and SeaDream or as an excursion from bigger cruise ships.

See: Captain's nightmare: The tightest squeeze in cruising

GOTA CANAL, SWEDEN

One of the largest construction projects ever undertaken in Sweden, the 190-kilometre Gota canal connects Stockholm and Gothenburg. It was the brainchild of engineer Baltzar von Platen and was built between 1810 and 1832 by about 60,000 soldiers. It's a dream transit for lovers of locks – there are 58, one of which is the lock staircase at Trollhattan that consists of four locks with a drop of 32 metres. A visit to the Trollhattan Canal Museum is one of many highlights along this peaceful, picturesque waterway. The vintage steamship MS Juno operates four-day cruises between Stockholm and Gothenburg; the 50-passenger vessel is the oldest registered cruise ship in the world.

KIEL CANAL, GERMANY

The North Sea-Baltic Canal, as the Kiel Canal is officially called, opened in 1895 and links the North Sea at Brunsbuttel to the Baltic at Kiel-Holtenau. The 98-kilometre canal took eight years to build and was extended between 1907 and 1914. It was originally constructed for military purposes and cuts out a 460-kilometre trip on the stormy seas around the Jutland Peninsula. Known as Europe's Panama, the Kiel Canal sees about 40,000 ships passing through a year; however it is crossed by 11 bridges and the height restriction is 42 metres. Smaller cruise ships such as Holland America Line's Prinsendam, Oceania's Insignia and Fred.Olsen's Braemar can transit the Kiel – it takes about eight hours.

PANAMA CANAL, REPUBLIC OF PANAMA

Arguably the most famous man-made waterway in the world, the Panama Canal allows ships to sail between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, thus avoiding the often hazardous and long (12,875-kilometre) route around Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America. The 77-kilometre Panama Canal has a bloody history; construction began in 1881 by the French company that had developed the Suez Canal but had to be abandoned in 1894 after several thousand workers died on the job. The canal was completed by the US in 1914. A massive expansion project – which has created a new shipping lane for post-Panamax vessels – was completed in June 2016.