Passau

COMING SOON!

Note the first two pictures are really from the night before.
Happy Birthday Steve!

We started today with a brisk hike across the Danube and up up up to the Veste Oberhaus for views of Passau. It was intermittently foggy, but a very nice walk none the less. The Veste Oberhaus is a fortified medieval castle built on top of St George's Hill in 1219. We didn't have a chance to tour the castle and its museums, but we could easily see why it was chosen as a defensive position.

We caught the busses back into town for a walking tour through the city. Passau is situated the confluence of three rivers - the Danube, the Ilz and the Inn. It was originally a Roman frontier outpost and was made an episcopal see in 738. It is a river port, a rail junction, and an industiral center sporting 10 breweries, as well textile and optical equipment manufacturing.

We visited the town hall with its sumputously decorated halls and paintings as well as marvelous display of model ships made of amber (Passau was an important stop on the amber trade route). We also visited the cathedral, originally built in 1407-1530. The baroque part was built after the fires that ravished the city in the 17th century. The cathedral boats the largest organ in the world with more than 17,000 pipes!

For the rest of our stay here we wandered through the town, up and down lovely old streets with narrow alleys and interesting doorways. We had a lovely stroll to the confluence of the three rivers "Dreiflüsse-Eck", and a walk around the old part of town, including a stop for pizza and beer - one can only eat so much schnitzel and wurst! After finishing our meanders we ended back at the boat to resume cruising down the Danube. This was an especially scenic portion of the river - the gooseneck loop of the Schlögener Schlinger. We treated to outstanding weather (again) for this portion of the cruise. Later on I will put a photo gallery up of shots of the river and the River Cloud.