This morning we woke, after a refreshing rest, onboard our luxury river cruise ship. We 
are still in Vilshofen, Germany, with time to explore the town or enjoy our new floating home before our scheduled departure around noon. The staff has prepared a tasty buffet breakfast for us. We learned that every day they bake fresh bread onboard and they quickly won me over with my favorite, fresh croissants! I elected to relax onboard and check out our new home. The top deck is a great place for viewing the scenery, relaxing with a good book, hanging out in the 
hot tub or playing a game of chess! While we were out enjoying the ship our maid came in and tidied our cabin, leaving us this cute welcome towel animal on our bed, and a note to be sure and contact the reception desk if we need anything! I think we are good…
Around noon we cast off the lines, said our goodbyes to Vilshofen and started our 
adventure down the Danube towards Passau, Germany. Our scheduled time to arrive in Passau is 2:30 p.m. This is so unlike the ocean cruises I have previously taken. The ship glides silently through the water as the panorama of scenery and small towns drift by. You might hear children laughing as they are out on recess, a cow mooing in the distance, a church bell ringing or the call of a hawk. You start experiencing a kinship with the land you are passing through. There is nothing like it! I heard that the French chef onboard was giving a demonstration on how to make
strudel so I headed off to check that out. He had one of the cruisers helping him out and was explaining all the tricks of how to make the best apple strudel. I think lots of butter is the key! I was fascinated with how he could get the dough so thin and stretchy, so I caught up with him later in the cruise and he offered to write out the recipe for me! Sure enough, a few days later the apple strudel recipe arrived in my cabin. Now I just have to brush up on my metric conversions!
We found out that our arrival in Passau would be just a bit later than expected because of some congestion in the locks. I took this picture of my foot as we were waiting in the lock. Look how close we were to the sides! I could have just stepped over my balcony into Germany! I doubt that anyone would do that, though. Why would you ever want to leave this paradise onboard our ship!
It was a beautiful day as we pulled into Passau! Few cities in Germany enjoy a setting as remarkable as that of Passau, which lies on the Austrian border. Passau is also known as the Dreiflussestadt or “City of Three Rivers”. Most of the Old City is built on a tapering peninsula of land surrounded to the north by the Danube and to the south by the Inn river. Just before the two meet, the small Ilz river also flows into the Danube. Our river vessel docked on the Danube next to the city center.
Passau is a solid old bishopric (an area historically most common within the Holy Roman Empire where a bishop held the secular authority) that has always enjoyed the good life, celebrating its religious festivities with plenty of music, beer for the men and hot chocolate for the ladies. Historically prospering from trade in wine, wheat and salt, it is an inviting city, from the onion domes and graceful arches of its baroque monuments to the rounded promontories separating the waterways. Sitting high above our ship was the majestic fortress Veste Oberhaus. Over the centuries, the Bishops of Passau emphasized their 
authority over the city by constructing a number of imposing residences, beginning with the medieval Veste Oberhaus fortress on St. Georgsberg mountain, 344 feet above the valley floor between the Danube and the Ilz. A road rises to Veste Oberhaus on the Ilz side. On foot, the castle can be reached via the 200 steps of the Oberhausleiten-Stiege stairway. The building, erected by Christoph von Schachner in 1499–1503, shows the highly visible coat of arms and date of 1499 on its façade facing the river. Notice the old way of writing a 4 in the date 1499! A 4 used to be written as half of 8.
Old City Hall
Passau is an essentially Baroque city, owing to extensive rebuilding after devastating fires in the 17th century. It is still characterized by narrow cobbled lanes and larger squares lined with Baroque houses reflecting a taste for the Italianate. Near the Danube, The Old City Hall, comprising several Gothic houses, has a spectacular neo-Gothic clock tower that was built in 1893. However, most of the building is much older, dating from the end of the 14th century. In the Spring of this year (2013) Eastern Europe experienced a 100 year flood, but had not received any significant rainfall for months after the flood. Water marks from floods over the years were recorded on the side of the Old City 
Hall dating back to 1501. This year’s flood surpassed the highest recorded flood line by about 12 inches! We saw little impact of the flood by the time we arrived in August, 2013, but the locals had some great stories! We passed by a hotel that had been hit by the flood. High up on the side of the hotel were 2 religious statues. We were told that the statues were washed off the building by the rushing water, later found blocks away and now have been returned to their perch to watch over the citizens of Passau!
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inhabitants. The most imposing of these is St. Stephen’s Cathedral, known for its pipe organ. It’s 17,000 pipes and 230 registers make it the largest of its kind in the world. It was installed in its present form in 1924-28, although much of the housing goes back to 1731.
Today, Passau is a very lively city due to the 10,000 students living here. They attend the University of Passau, renowned for its institutes of Economics, Law, Theology, Computer Sciences and Cultural Studies. We were strolling through the downtown and came upon this interesting interactive sculpture. Here is Mark turning the crank to form a water tornado! It was great fun and after we left we noticed several others came by to try it out. The local kids, as well as this one, loved it!
After a fun afternoon exploring Passau, we headed back to our elegant floating home for the evening and a delightful dinner with our new and old friends. After dinner we enjoyed a performance by “The Sound of Austria” group, followed by relaxing piano music from our onboard musician Hristo! We leave at midnight tonight for Austria!
Stay tuned for the next installment of our adventures on the Danube!
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