Danube Waltz Viking River Cruise
Day 3: Monday, October 21, 2019 - Passau, Germany
At about 1:45 AM, we both woke up for some reason. The ship wasn't even moving, so it wasn't anything like that - going
through a lock or the engine running. After tossing for 45 minutes, Linda and I had a coversation that went something like this:
Steve: "You still awake?"
Linda: "Yea"
Steve: "Having trouble sleeping?"
Linda: "Yea"
Steve: "Why the hell can't we get to sleep?"
Linda: "I dunno."
We didn't get much sleep on the flight, and we didn't really get too much sleep the first night onboard for some reason. Eventually it was time to get out of bed and get the day going.
This was our first full day on our cruise. Today was a visit to the city of Passau (pronounced Pass-oh). We didn't go anywhere on the ship yet either.
Breakfast was egg benedict for Linda, while I enjoyed some scrambled eggs with mushrooms, and some potatoes. And some sausage. And some sliced ham. And some bacon. It was supposed to be a fairly long walking day so I wanted to make sure I fueled up a little. And we had pineapple juice and coffee.
While this picture was taken during our tour, it was on a display in a plaza, this shows what the town / city of Passau looks like
from above (that's how the rivers look - there is more on that later). Our ship was docked north of (above) the bridge over
the river on the right.
This is this day's approximation of where we walked.
The red line is the walk from the ship to St. Stephen's Cathedral, and the blue is the return trip.
We gathered right outside our boat for our first excursion. Before our tour got underway, I captured a daylight image of the fortress
from the night before.
And a closer shot.
And a close-up of the number and symbol in the center. What number does that look like?
It sort of looks like a weird zero, right? It is actually a Gothic 4. Because it is half an 8. Seriously. And the
two beasts above the number are the Passau Red Lion and a goat (sorry, didn't capture exactly what that one was).
Take a look at the windows on the lowest level, on either side of the left tower.
Did you notice anything about them? Here's a clearer close-up of one - specifically the lower right one. Take a look [again].
Can you tell? If not, allow me to spill the beans. They are painted. The reason is because windows create structural weakness and
the lowest level of the fortress didn't need any weakness. So they painted the windows on to look symetrical with the whole facade.
When we gathered for the tour, it was cool enough that we could see our breath.
This was a section of town near the boat.
Our excurion was the Walking Tour of Passau, and our tour guide this morning was Alexander. He started his introduction to
us with "I know you were expecting a Caucasian blond guy wearing lederhosen. Not an Asian." He turned out to be
a native born Bohemian son of immigrants. His family owned the only Chinese restaraunt in the town for quite some time.
In this image you can see him wearing a headset. That's the guide's / leader's device from a system called Quiet Voice.
Each group participant had a device that was about six to eight inches long and about as around as a U.S. half dollar.
The devices are worn around the neck on a lanyard or tucked in a pocket.
From it was a wired earpiece that went into one's left ear (you may notice the wire in some of the people pictures later).
This allowed anyone in the group to be within more than one-hundred feet and still hear the tour guide without the tour
guide having to shout to everyone. All our tour guides wore these.
Alexander was very knowledgeable and told us about the town, the flood, the landmarks, and some sights. We started off walking along the Danube.
We made our up the hill away from the river.
This picture was framed for perspective. There is a marking on the right most corner of the building showing the height
of the last flood the town experienced. As you can see, it was above the door.
Over the hill and down the other side, was the Inn River. The first image is a composite.
The tower - Schaibling Tower - had been being used as a salt tower. We were told they used the salt for trade,
as well as to help melt the ice on the river.
The abbey on the hilltop has a staircase going up to it. We were told that the Abbey residents are known to climb the stairs,
one at a time, on their knees, while they pray the rosary. They don't always complete the trek in one day, so they
mark where they stopped with a crayon. And sometimes the cleaners remove it - so they have to start over.
And we started heading back up the hill.
We came across this small one-seater car.
And more walking around the town.
At the top of some doors was written "20* C + M + B +19".
We were told this meant "Christus mansionem benedicat 2019", or, in English, "May Christ bless this home 2019"
We weaved our way through the town, hearing some stories, and seeing some interesting sights, such as this church.
And some narrow allies.
And some other sights.
And city hall.
One plaza had a ... beer fountain. While it was not in operation while we were there, it is intended to be rented for parties and weddings.
The stones, in artists alley - called Höllgasse - were painted as an art piece, showing the way to art galleries.
Our final goal was to reach St. Stephen's Cathedral. There was a plaza behind the cathedral.
On one side of that plaza was the bishop's quarters that are now a cafe.
And a fountain with parliment quarters behind it.
We started walking along the side of the cathedral. The clock on the cathedral tower. The date, in the four corners
around the clock, are the date it was completed - 1776.
Many years ago, most of the church was destroyed by a fire. The two halves show how part of the church was
constructed using Baroque style, while the other half in Gothic.
A statue out in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral, with the cathedral behind it.
The massive door of the cathedral, with Linda to show perspective.
A quick selfie while in the plaza in front of the cathedral.
Our ship's program director - Daniel - handed out tickets for an organ concert in the cathedral. We visited the inside
of the church and then sat for the concert. As we started to make our way inside the cathedral for the organ concert, we
came across this fountain in the courtyard.
Enjoy some organ music while you view a slideshow of the pictures of the church. They are duplicated below the video
if you want bigger, more detailed images to look at. Something that isn't evident from a basic recording is that the
sounds from the organ seemed to - and probably did - come from different areas of the cathedral, such as toward the
front and on the sides.
The images are different for the first ~2:10 of the video.
Here are some pictures of inside the cathedral, including the ceiling, altar, architecture, ambo, and side altars.
The organ has more than 17,000 pipes. It is the largest piupe organ in Europe, and the second largest in the world -
the largest being in Utah (who'd've thought, right?!!?). The concert lasted about 30 minutes.
The organist is in the foreground. You can really tell how large some of the pipes are with this image.
I usually crop images to remove some of the unnecessary fringe content. I didn't do that with these because there was
just way too much going on.
After the concert, we started our return to the ship. Before reaching the ship we stopped for, amoung a couple other
items, our shot glass.
Then we continued the rest of the way to the ship - for lunch. Lunch always included a "Market Fare" component.
This consisted of a make-your-own salad, pre-made salad such as gourmet macaroni salad, and or bean salad.
Here is today's lunch menu.
There was also extra regional like specialties such as Grilled Marinated Vegetables, and Cumin Chicken Breast on
Cucumber Raita, as pictured here.
Linda had black bean soup; roast beef with cream cheese spread on a bagette with chips and lettuce, tomato and sprouts;
and the pear tart bourdaloue
for dessert (no pic).
I had the market fare appetizers, barbeque ribs with fries (they were regular, unlike the sweet potato
listed on the menu), and Black Forrest ice cream (no pic).
And of course we both had wine. Lunch was with Beryl and Diana, two ladies from the UK.
We were underway at about 1:45. We were told that Passau was on the convergence of the Inn and Danube Rivers. But what
was supposed to be striking was the fact that the two waters were different colors. This was supposed to be because the
one river was significantly deeper than the other. In these shots, you can hopefully see the contrast of the two.
In case you can't, here is the dividing line.
Here is Passau from the middle of the convergence of the two rivers, as the boat was turning around.
It appears that there is a nice little park - Passau Park - at the end point of the town, but we didn't get to visit it.
It turns out the boat backed out of where it was - facing West - into the convergence, turned around, and then
proceeded East.
Here are some images from our journey on the Danube, including some towns.
There was quite a bit of solar and alternative energy solutions, including this hilltop house with a VAWT
(Verticle Access Wind Turbine).
We approach our first lock. To the right is a dam, we'll be entering to the left.
We were prohibited from going up to the sundeck due to the low clearance going into the lock.
I took a video of the boat in the lock while the water level dropped. While it took 15 minutes in all,
here is a time-lapse version.
This day at 2:30 was a safety drill where everyone put on their life jackets and made their way to their check points.
Supposedly there was one couple that was not accounted for. They happened to be amongst the crowd, they were just missed.
A little while after the drill, at 3:30, we had German Tea. This consisted of cakes, scones, and othe treats, and, of
course, tea. We each had a little bit of the sweets - a couple small squares of cake (they were about one inch square).
This Black Forrest Cake will give you an idea of what it was like.
We didn't sleep well, so at about 4:30, we took a nap.
Today we also went through two locks. Once you've seen one lock, you've seen them all, right...
As the left side of the menu is the same, here is the right side of the menu, specific for tonight.
Linda's dinner consisted of French goat cheese soufflé, seared sea bass filet, and Marillenknodel (Austrian dumpling,
apricot stuffing).
I enjoyed the Erbsensuppe mit rauchwűrstchen (potato, sausage, and pea soup), zwiebelrostbraten
(braised beef, mashed potatoes, onion sauce), and crème broûlée.
And again there was more wine. There is always wine. Dinner started at - as it did all but one night - at 7:00,
and by about 8:30 we finished eating and chatting with Maureen, Brian, Linda (yes, another Linda), Tony, and Yvonne.
After dinner, it was time for some local entertainment. A crew came aboard and sang some Austrian opera music,
there was some Mozart piano music, and dancing.
Plus a couple numbers from the Sound of Music.
We eventually made our way back to our room and tried to sleep. Again.