This is our last day aboard the beautiful AmaViola. We're back in Germany! We've emerged from our day in the Wachau Valley.
The bike tour was cancelled due to weather - it was wet and cold. So we took the regular city walking tour and had an excellent tour guide. He explained that he has much more in common with Austrians than with his fellow Germans (like in Berlin for example). Passau is just over the border between Bavaria, Germany and Austria. We walked along the lower part of the city by the Danube past the many markers on the buildings showing the floods - typically up to the second floor. On this street, color marks on the narrow streets designated an arts zone where no residents are allowed to live on the first floor (only artists, lawyers and such - who have light weight furnishings on the first floor which can be easily removed upstairs in the event of flood. It floods regularly and severely in Passua, so it is a way of life.
We looked at “the castle” of Passau which was built over a 800 year time frame. For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veste_Oberhaus We walked up one of the small streets where the guide pointed out that the houses were all different - some were leaning forwardd, others backward some were straight others were curved. This indicated that poor people lived here and just didn’t care about such stuff. Also the first floors were typically a different width than upper floors as the first floors were 800 years old while the upper floors were built after 1660 or so. We then saw how the rich people lived - large houses, each built similarly and of course all at the top of the hill, close to the cathedral and bishops house.
We proceed to the cathedral which was built over several hundred years and many architects with different styles. Very ornately decorated on the inside.
That evening we had a Bavarian party in Vilshofen. A live band played traditional German music and they handed out German Pils and pretzels. Highly engaging and entertaining evening. Sure it was raining outside - but inside the tent it was dry, warm enough and highly energetic.
So we finished in Vilshofen the same way we started this trip in Munich - with a beer and pretzel. We packed later that night and flew home the next day.
New Year's eve 2020 in Vienna was just so memorable! And of course all the people we met and toured with are a big part of why these river cruises are so much fun. The food was great, the ship was stellar and the service the usual AmaWaterways wonderful. We so enjoyed Munich, Budapest and all the visits along the Danube.
This was our third time on a Danube river cruise. What's amazing is that it still felt new and fresh. Our excursions were a different for the most part. But even when we repeated a city tour as we did in Passau, it was still so different as each tour guide highlights different things.
Want to find more about river cruising? Contact me directly or check out other blog posts here.
Here's the entire Melody on the Danube series: