Today we had the choice of visiting Passau, cruising in the afternoon and visiting Linz late in the afternoon or paying to do a tour to Salzburg or Cesky Krumlov. We decided to stay with the boat and we are glad we did. We had a lovely day. In Passau we did the walking tour through the lovely town. Passau is the meeting place of three rivers and suffers problems with floods. In 2013 they had a very bad flood and they are still restoring some of the damage. Most of the houses had to have the plaster removed from the outside to allow the walls to dry out and then the plaster replaced.
In most of the towns we have visited, because of the historical significance there are rules and regulations about renovations and repairs and replacing buildings with buildings that look the same as the original. Some towns have been UNESCO heritage listed.
Passau is a very old town that was governed by a Bishop and after the town fire (most of them have a fire at some stage) half the gothic church was burnt down. This was restored and a new baroque section added to the original. It is quite obvious where the gothic section ends and the baroque section starts. The Bishops Palace was gothic and decorated magnificently. It was used as the Bishop’s residence until 1976.
We visited the town square and saw the fountain that depicted the three rivers joining. Brown for the Inn River that flows from the Black Forest in the South and contains the tannin from the trees. Blue for the Danube and green for the Ilz river from the North. On the foreshore the 14th Century town hall has paintings and murals on the outside and is quite large and beautiful. It also has flood markers on the corner to show the flood levels. We walked through the artists alleys and around the town.
We boarded the boat for lunch and continued our sail along the Danube enjoying the views. We have finished going under low bridges and locks, so the sun deck is open again. We spent the afternoon talking to Ramon and Jo, an English couple we have met. Ramon is an ex-police superintendent, head of criminal investigation and police training. A very interesting man who knows a lot about motorsport etc. and gets along very well with Gerard. They have many long conversations on all sorts of topics. Jo is lovely too. We spent the afternoon discussing where we should go and what we should do in Spain as they have a house near Malaga for summer holidays.
We also had a lesson in making apple strudel from the ship’s pastry cook and had a lovely afternoon tea eating the strudel! Hence we need to walk lots!
We arrived in Linz about 5pm and headed off to discover it by ourselves. We walked into the centre of town and came across a little tractor train that gave a 30min city tour. All aboard for the 6pm tour and we learned a little about Linz and it’s history. We walked through the town market square and we were back on the boat at 6.45pm for 7.15pm dinner.
Tonight’s entertainment was Brett Reid, an Aussie living nearby in Austria and he was great. He goes back to Australia every year for the Tamworth Music Festival. Much better that our Bavarian friends of the night before.
