Danube Day 11

Susan: I have mentioned a couple of times how much we have enjoyed the European breakfast. Toward the end of this trip I decided I needed to document how wonderful it was! There was always a wonderful selection of eggs, fruits, meats, cheese, homemade breads, croissants and more!

James: We started the morning with a walking tour of Passau with local expert Eva. Eva has been giving tours of Passau for years and today was her birthday! We walked from our hotel up one of the narrow cobblestone alleys that led from the street that our hotel was on to the main drag at the top of the hill. As we walked up the alley she mentioned the doors of the apartments that we passed. Some were very old, dating back hundreds of years and each was unique. “Did you notice?” she asked, “How come some of the doors have a small window in them?”. She proceeded to tell us that the doors with windows were homes that had occupants that had contracted the black plague. The window was so that the family of the afflicted could pass food and water to their loved one inside without contacting them directly. The food and drink was passed via a long pole. Thus the old saying “I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole” is said to have originated.

We continued up the hill and to the St. Stephen cathedral. In addition to being a huge and incredibly ornate church, it houses the largest church organ in Europe with nearly 18,000 pipes.

They are currently renovating the entire organ and pipes. Impressive. The original organ required four altar boys to continuously pump air into the system to make it work. The updated system accomplishes the same thing electronically. Service was about to begin so we had to vacate.

Susan: People in our group noticed the different colors of the building in Passau. Eva explained that the color of the building denoted the trade of the owner. For example, red for a butcher, yellow for a brewer, or green for an inn. She said it is similar to the color coding system in Charleston, South Carolina.  At the end of the tour we wished Eva a very happy birthday and then boarded a public transit bus to take us to Obernhaus castle that sits high up on a bluff overlooking the town. The view from there was spectacular!

James: We toured a very interesting museum that talked about the history of the area and then I ate lunch at the onsite restaurant. The menu was in German of course and our waiter didn’t speak much English so I quickly just chose something at random. It turned out to be amazing!- a brat on a bed of sauteed peppers and onions. Maybe my favorite meal of the trip. We could have toured more of the grounds, but after all of the morning’s steps, we decided to cut it short.

Susan and I opted to take the trail down while the Harmons decided to take the shuttle back. It was a really cool walk along the ancient perimeter wall surrounding the castle. Shortly after that the Harmons joined us, they too walked down as the bus was going to take much longer.

We decided to stop in at the Ratskeller, where we had stopped and had a beer outside and is located in a cool old building that contains a prominent clock tower. I ordered a curry wiener. I thought that it was a small portion and would just be a little something to tide me over until dinner. It turned out to be quite large and along with a huge pile of fries, filled my plate. It was superb!

After that we decided to tour the Glass Museum that was next to to the Ratskeller.  It sounded impressive on paper- built by an entrepreneur who renovated an old building for a hotel and the museum. He has something like 100,000 pieces. The museum only holds a small percentage of the total inventory. There is so much that the rest of it is stored in the hotel’s swimming pool area! There are all shapes and sizes, colors and categories. There was even glassware made from uranium oxide that glowed in the dark! Don’t think I’d want to drink my orange juice from one of those. We managed about three floors of exhibits, and I must admit, it was fantastic. However we had been on our feet for hours so we decided to call it quits. 

Susan:   Eva, our tour guide, spoke very highly of the Glass Museum and told us a great story about its beginnings. When the owners were preparing to open, they were trying to figure out how to draw attention to a new museum in Passau—wondering, “Who will come all the way here?” One evening, over beers with friends, they tossed around ideas and, after a few drinks, landed on a bold one: invite the first man on the moon to visit what they jokingly called “the last place on earth” for the grand opening. It worked and Neil Armstrong was there for three days to commemorate the opening of the Hotel Wilder Mann.

At 4:00 p.m., we boarded a Passau river cruise to see the city from the water, which gave us a completely different perspective—and an even better view of where the three rivers come together.

As we were passing by the Dreiflüsseeck (Three Rivers Conjunction Point) we saw a group of hare krishnas chanting and singing. 

James: There was another group dinner planned for tonight but we opted out mostly because the dinners usually didn’t end until around 9 pm and most of us were exhausted by then. I went and took a sauna and we chilled out for a while. Later we went to a nearby Indian restaurant, Kahaani for a nice dinner. Then back to the hotel to repack and hit the sack.

Susan: At this point, lots of people with colds. Jim is one of them. It was nice to have dinner with just the two of us plus the food was fantastic! Franz and Joan saw us coming out of. the restaurant, we were caught red handed.