Passau, Germany

We awoke today as we were docking in Passau.  Three rivers come together here, the Danube, the Inn and the Itz.  As a result, it has survived endless floods along with the plagues that follow.  Austria can be easily seen from here.  The Inn river comes down from Austria passing Innsbruck (the bridge over the Inn).

By the way, we are loving our stateroom.  It is quite spacious and we have two sliding doors that we can roll back and enjoy a wonderful open-air view of the river.  It has a nespresso machine, a little fridge, a huge walk-in closet and a terrific shower. 

Behind the drapes are our huge floor to ceiling windows

View from our bed

Lounge

Bar

Alternative dining

Lobby

Top side

River boats in front of us this morning

Plenty of bikes if that is what you choose to do today

Complimentary water and maps

Prior to starting our walking tours for the day, we have to select a colored poker chip from five baskets.  There are 25 chips in each basket and five different colors.  This tells us which guide we should assemble with once we get off the boat and ensures that each guide has an equal amount of guests.  We were all ready to go by 9:15AM and assembled with our blue group and we were off for a little history of the city.

The below photo shows some of the historical floods and the height the water reached.  The town no longer allows people to live on the ground floor.  Stores, cafes, etc., can be there but no living allowed.

 

After our walking tour, we had about an hour of free time and then Tauck provided us tickets to hear the organ concert in the Cathedral.  The organ is actually five organs with 17,000 pipes and over 200 stops.  We heard five pieces from Bach to Mozart and lots of shaking when the bass pipes were invoked.

The tours are informative and sometimes the local guides create some quite moving moments with their stories of living in their countries.  Other times, it is a bit frustrating when you want to go left but the guide goes right.  You can always leave the tour at any point and you can also wander off a bit and still hear what the guide is saying.

A good example of being frustrated was when our guide was giving some really good historical context of the cathedral about the how the altar is only sixty years old.  It was a gift from the citizens of the city.  The lower portion represents the new and old testaments with the father, the son and the holy spirit looking down from above.  We were seated a significant distance from the altar.  When she finished her talk, she said "OK, let's head outside now".  Everyone followed her but I thought "wait a minute, why can't we get a good look at what you just spent 20 minutes talking about?"  So I walked all the way up to the altar to shoot some photos.  While I was separated from the group, I could still hear her voice in my ear from the VOX box.  And I was able to catch up with them.

Jeff had long since left the group to do shopping.  Churches are not his thing although he did come back to hear the wonderful organ concert which we both enjoyed.

And then it was time to reboard the boat at 12:45PM to head to Linz, Austria.

The sail out from Passau was enchanting.  Everyone was up on the top deck enjoying the great weather and incredible views.  We went under low bridges and some large locks where we dropped 33 feet.  Lunch was a Bavarian affair with our waiters dressed up in traditional garb.

The trip through the Austrian countryside was incredible.  Soaring mountains, swans on the river, bicyclists enjoying the day made us truly appreciate the joys of river cruising.  Jeff put on his swimsuit and sat for hours in the pool watching the scenery go by.

During our dinner with several people we met onboard, we arrived in Linz, Austria.  I went topside to try some night-time photography.

Goodnight.