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Published: September 9th 2017
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A view of Old Town Passau
Taken from the Inn River bridge We arrived to our ship the Hermod which just seemed to be anchored at some non-descript location at the side of the River Danube. No harbor, no marina, just the ship or longboat as it is called with a gangway. Three other buses also off loaded passengers at the same time. The welcoming staff were so well organized that within five minutes we were being lead to our room by Borska who pointed out all the shipboard amenities while leading us to our cabin. The room was a little smaller than I had imagined but crisp and clean with plenty of storage. The bathroom, however, was very small and it almost seemed like they had already pre-measured the size of our bodies and built the shower stall with the least amount of room needed for our exact body size. Once everyone was aboard the ship pushed off and we were on our way to the Old Town Passau. Since we had begun in Passau the trip was relatively short, perhaps. 10 minutes or so. We had a tasty dinner and turned in for the night.
We woke refreshed and ready for the next guided tour. Our rooms came supplied with
Passau from above
You can see from this postcard the colors of the Inn (left) and the Danube (right) we stood on the bridge on the left, our ship is dock near the bridge on the right. the listening devices for the walking tour and at the appointed time a general announcement asked all aboard to disembark and go to our pre-determined tour group. The entire ship stood on shore and were slowly wandering over to their appointed guide each holding the red Viking paddle with group number visible. Very organized yet quite the commotion and noise with the entire ship standing there all at the same time. Tom and I just stood there waiting while others began questioning our guide, "how long is the tour?" Where can we exchange dollars for Euros?" "What's your name?" "We can't leave yet my wife went back to get something." We were laughing and just standing there. Deiter walked over to each person without answering and tapped his Red Viking sign to their monitor making the head pieces spring to life. I realized that each guide had their own signal and once your guide tapped your monitor you were immediately connected to his voice only. So there we stood as as we were given all the necessary instructions listening to Deiter and preparing to walk around Passau. So it was that about 180 passengers were now ready to descend on
the tiny town of Passau each group taking off in a different direction so as not to be on top of each other. Our group headed in the direction of the Inn River. Deiter our guide lives in Passau and like Radek in Prague he loves and is very proud of his town. We were shown high water marks where the town had flooded in many years past, the latest being just a few years ago. The houses along the River all had many permanent plaques marking floods over hundreads of years. The houses were painted in blues, pinks, reds, yellows, and tans and we were told that anyone living in old town must adhere to the houses original color because of its historic meaning. Hundreds of years ago the general population could not read and these colors determined the type of business the owner had. Blue was for bakeries, pinks and reds were butchers, greens were apothecaries, and yellow dairy. They are so organized here! We learned a little war history as we walked then strolled through the heart of town.
Old town Passau is on a tiny peninsula from high above you can see where the Inn
River and Danbe converge at the tip and it is easy to see the stark difference in the colors of the rivers. It would only take you maybe 5 or 10 minutes at the most to walk the width of the peninsula where our ship was anchored close to the tip. We ended the tour by St Stephens cathedral, there was to be an organ concert today but Tom and I only wanted to see the interior of the cathedral. Passau is a beautiful town and once again we learned so much be taking the guided tour. So glad we did.
Today the ship would really begin its journey down the Danube just after lunch. Tom and I headed back to the ship down the cobbled narrow roads to have lunch then go above to the Sun Deck and watch the towns on the Danube pass by.
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