We arrived in Passau, Germany about 9:00am this morning. My friends and I were signed up for the included excursion 'Passau Walking Tour'. The ship was docked in a spot right on the edge of the main part of the town, so no bus ... just walking.
A little history: Passau was actually founded by the Celts more than 2,000 years ago, which makes it one of Bavaria's oldest cities. It is located at the confluence of three rivers (the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz) and is thus known as the 'City of Three Rivers'. With its location, it has enjoyed its strategic position in the past. Some of the structures are beautiful and grew to be an economic and political power. As one example, a huge amount of the salt trade passed through Passau in the middle ages.
The architecture was beautiful, and showed influences of other countries in some areas.
This was one of the most fun things for me. There is actually a dackel museum in Passau. For those who don't speak German - that's dachshund museum. It small and jam-packed with about 10,000 different dachshunds in that space. I just loved it.
Of course I took more pictures than this - I can't resist dachshunds!
There is a fortress overlooking the city (Veste Oberhaus) from the 13th century; today it include a city museum and an observation tower. Much of the architecture in town is baroque, and it is also the home of (another) St. Stephen's Cathedral, which houses one of Europe's largest pipe organs with almost 18,000 pipes. There are also eight enormous bells weighing over 16,000 lbs. St. Stephen's was mostly destroyed in a 1662 fire that swept through Passau. The cathedral had been of Gothic architecture, but only a portion of that remained, and it was reconstructed by an architect named Carlo Lurago between 1668 and 1693 in a baroque style. We were not able to enter the church when we reached the end of the walking tour. However, that was because they were preparing for an organ concert that began about an hour after the tour, so we were able to attend that concert and tour inside the cathedral at that time. It wasn't as magnificent as it might have been because of some restoration work being done - there was a lot of scaffolding inside the cathedral. Still, it was beautiful.
After the concert, we started back to the ship. We were finally able to get some pictures of the other side of the Danube (including the fortress) which had all been fogged in earlier in the day.
Dinner this evening was called "Taste of Germany". Instead of ordering off the menu, we were served a dinner with a variety of different regional foods. There was an amazing dessert buffet as well - lots of different traditional German delicacies! After that, there was a return of the Music Trivia night. We had so much fun the first time that we decided to do it again!
Tomorrow, the final full day of the trip. Regensburg, Germany.
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