Linz & Passau

Avalon’s description of our visit to Linz is very misleading. We hesitated to sign up for too many side tours as we had wanted to take advantage of the “regular” offerings of the cruise. Today though we stopped in Linz just long enough to drop off ¾ of our fellow passengers to board one of three buses headed to optional tours. We were in docked for exactly 35 minutes so it was a stop only in the most technical sense! It was 7:00 am but as I was up anyway I decided to get up and explore with the little time I had. Before you get off a riverboat you must obtain a shore pass from the receptionist. This morning she clearly thought I had lost my mind to ask for a pass to get off, and repeatedly reminded me that the boat would be leaving in 35 minutes. She doesn’t know me well obviously if she believes I would be late and miss a sailing!

The day was very relaxing and satisfyingly productive. The blog has been a bit of a challenge since getting a connection is sporadic, and there is always so much to see that finding time to write can be a challenge. Today was a great day to gather my thoughts, tidy up notes and picture files and generally regroup. Of course I paused a thousand times to appreciate a pretty Bavarian village or observe the magic of passing through one of the many locks that allows us safe and easy passage up the river in Germany.

I have noticed that much of the riverbank along the Danube has been sandy. All along we have noticed swimmers and families out for a beach picnic. I don’t know what I expected but that wasn’t it. There are places where we notice repair from the recent floods but we are amazed at what little evidence there is of 9m of water! It is very clear why some towns were severely affected but they seem to have weathered it as well as they have the Crusades, fires, royal greed, wars and every other darn thing that history seems to have thrown their way.

After a relaxing day of cruising we arrived in Paussau in time to meet a guide for a late afternoon city tour. Yet another city where I wish we could stay an extra couple of days! The overview of the city (now a highlight feature for me with Avalon) left us with many interesting secrets of this little Bavarian town. We have learned that:

·         Breweries in Bavaria are always bright yellow with a stack – easy to spot and take advantage of.

·         St. Mary’s is the oldest church in Passau dating back to 1635. King Leopold, his wife, his mistress and 100 or his guards came here to pray when Vienna was being threatened by Turkish troops. His prayers were answered and since that time St. Mary’s is believed to be a site of answered prayers. Needing to climb 312 steps to arrive at the church, I will take my chances with prayer without the assistance of St. Mary!

·         Passau was a prosperous port as it was located at the confluence of three rivers that all flowed in different directions. The Danube flows from west to east, the Inn flows from south to north and the Ilz flows from north to south. All three converge in Passau and join to flow east to the Black Sea. This means that from Passau there are rivers with access to all directions.

·         Salt from Saltzberg was of huge benefit to Passau. They could bring the “white gold” down the river from Saltzberg, store it in silos and then transport is out in all directions for triple the cost! The early inhabitants understood the value of location!

·         Passau suffered some of the most severe of the flood damage a few weeks ago. We knew this before we left home as many of the pictures in the media had come from Passau. Its location on the three rivers makes it obvious why. It is not difficult to still find damaged properties but the work that has been done it incredibly impressive! Our local guide, in lederhosen (!), was a University student who told us that, as students were still in town they organized themselves as volunteer work crews and assisted property owners and the town in their cleanup efforts. It is apparently illegal here is Passau to have a first floor location as an apartment. Floods can happen so quickly that if it happened in the middle of the night and someone was sleeping there, they would drown before much could be done! In this case it certainly would have been true since the water marks on the buildings are halfway up the second story windows! Going down side alleys in more enclosed locations there is a definite smell of wet concrete and the hum of fans can be heard as you pass open doorways. According to our guide the flood has had two great advantages. The town has never looked better as everything has been cleaned and repaired, so is fresh and attractive. The second advantage is the sandy beaches that have been created along the banks of the Danube!!! Apparently these did not exist before the flood. The raging river brought the sand and deposited it. Locals are now enjoying a day at the beach! Talk about finding a silver lining!

·         Passau is beautiful with its cobblestone streets and its fountains – with children swimming in them! It is quite hot but that’s the first time I have seen this! Back home someone would quickly get them out of there, here no one seems to notice much!

·         We did get caught is some kind of protest but we still are not sure what it was. Seems to defeat the purpose when no one understands what you are for or against! Along the water walkway (that reminded me of Stanley Park!) a group of young people surrounded our group and held hands with their backs to us. Some in our group became nervous, even our guide was confused! I did point out they were too pleasant looking to be of much threat. The pretty young girl in front of me clearly understood that as she turned to give me a very stern face. She failed terribly and her cute, exaggerated frown quickly turned to a giggle. Eventually, as nothing seemed to be happening, we ducked below their held hands and continued on our way past two other young girls on a park bench who were filming the whole thing. At that point I noticed they all wore buttons that said simply 57 – whatever that means! Anyway we may be on youTube, we may be a local version of Just for Laughs, we may have been caught in some protest, I have no idea. If anybody learns anything please let me know!

·         Visiting yet another St. Stephen Cathedral, this time an interesting blend of Gothic and Baroque style, we saw the largest pipe organ in the world. Not hard to believe when you see the 17,388 pipes located in five different locations in the church all controlled through a single keyboard. The pictures truly do not do it justice.

·         The guide told the story, we have heard before, of the monks sending a request to Rome to have their Bavarian beer allowed during lent. Since it was made only from ingredients found in bread and water, they sent a barrel to the Pope to ask for permission to drink their beer during fast. By the time the beer arrived in Rome it was of course quite skunky and on sipping it the Pope agreed that they could drink as much of it as they wanted! Germans do create beer as an art form and even this little town has no less than three breweries! We asked our guide to suggest a good local beer garden and he told us that Wirtshaus Bayerischer Löwe was the place to be. Well past all the tourist restaurants on the pedestrian ways we continued on to the end of town to have a local delight in an authentic beer garden. Looking very much like its name suggests, we sat under the trees and enjoyed the result of asking for a “local favourite”. Innstadt Passauer WeiBe was a cloudy brew with a hint of cloves – delicious!!

Back on board we enjoyed another delicious dinner and then were thoroughly entertained by the crew! On all our cruises we have enjoyed the traditional night of entertainment by the staff and crew. This show beat them all! We wondered since the pool of talent is so much smaller here than on a cruise ship. What they lost is numbers was more than made up for is enthusiasm, creativity and outrageous hilarity! The sight of our 6’4” skinny chef who calls everyone “darlink”(who always looks like a pirate, with a head scarf covering his baldness, a shiny gold hoop in one ear and skin bronzed to the colour of copper) suddenly well endowed with the help of some overinflated balloons, dancing Swan Lake in a tutu ... well it defies description!

Beautiful bridges of Linz.

Meter markers to measure the hight of the river.

Castles on the hill mixed with ultramodern angled glass buildings.

Not much room to fit under some bridges so river height is critical.

These captains are experts at parallel parking in these locks!

Even when you are in a lock by yourself, space is tight! This is the side of our boat and the side of the lock, taken from our stateroom. The light is green but you want to know what you're doing before you go.

Pretty sights everywhere on the river.

Watermark from the flood in Passau.

Again watermarks, with some of our group in the shot for perspective.

Altar sculptures in St. Stephen Cathedral. The scene depicts his stoning with him looking toward heaven. The fresco above shows, as the ledgend tells, the heavens opening to welcome him.

The largest pipe organ in Europe with over 17,000 pipes.

 An authentic Bavarian beer garden and a happy girl!

Statues, like fountians, have useful purposes here!