It was a heart-stopping moment. There I was, strolling along a deserted tow path, a dawn breeze rustling the leaves on the trees lining the canal, when suddenly I noticed our cruise boat come up behind, pass me, pick up speed and disappear into the distance.

I broke into a hopeless jog, unencumbered by anything as useful as money or a phone. I had left my partner, Michael, asleep in his bunk and it could be ages before he noticed I was missing.

With a handful of others I had jumped ashore at a set of locks, assured by a crew member that we could get back on board a few kilometres farther on.

The other early-birds had sprinted or power-walked off, leaving me far behind. Surrounded by empty fields and without a dog-walker in sight, there was nothing for it but to keep going. And, sure enough, I eventually caught up.

On the Gota Canal in Sweden locks are seldom single. Instead of just one to delay vessels, there are four, five, even seven, in a row, taking an hour or more to pass through. No wonder the Swedes view this marvel of 19th-century engineering as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Having caught my breath, regained my composure, and joined Michael and the other passengers at the next set of locks, I, too, was venerating its mastermind, Count Baltzar von Platen.

Thanks to von Platen, a naval officer and government minister, and the great British civil engineer Thomas Telford, each summer thousands of holidaymakers can navigate his “blue ribbon across Sweden”, from Gothenburg on the North Sea to Stockholm on the Baltic.

Some potter along for weeks on small craft; others, like us, join a fully crewed boat, such as Juno, for four days.

The Gota Canal was not built with modern-day pleasure-seekers in mind, although its tourism potential was realised in the 1920s when cruises began for Swedish-Americans returning to the country on holiday.

Before the waterway was completed, moving freight and people between the capital, Stockholm, and the second city, Gothenburg, was slow and costly. A solution was sought, and after 22 years of work by 60,000 soldiers, the 190km canal and its 58 locks were opened by King Karl XIV in 1832.

After a blazing summer’s day strolling Gothenburg’s almost empty streets and parks we joined little Juno, a steamship built in 1874, at the dock by the Opera House. Up the short gangplank was the door to our cabin, one of 29, just like railway sleeping compartments.

It was a bit cramped, but good enough for Hans Christian Andersen and Henrik Ibsen, who both sailed on Juno, and managed without a private bathroom for a few days.

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