Passau

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Mysterious goings in the middle of the night, and it wasn't us! There was dense fog at one point, another time we were stationary alongside another ship, and another time I was woken by quite a few strong jolts.



This morning no detailed explanations were offered but the main news was that we were not able to reach our destination, Regensburg, because the river level had risen so much in a few hours that we could not get under some of the bridges. This was despite the fact that they can retract all the superstructure on the top deck to make the ship lower. So we docked at Passau so that the ship could wait for the river level to subside.



Unlike most stops, the docking place for Passau was well outside the town centre in a very unattractive area, so we confined ourselves to walking round to Lidl and getting a few munchies for the cabin.



When the captain felt the river had subsided enough we set sail for the first of the low bridges in Passau itself. Everyone around us was saying we'd never get under it, but we tiptoed through at about 1 m.p.h. with only centimeters to spare! After that we were able to enjoy the beautiful architecture of the town gliding past us.



Our progress was halted again at Vilshofen at teatime whilst we waited for the river to subside even more. We watched a bright red autogiro take off from the riverside airstrip on the opposite bank.



Just as I was trying to work out how I could get across to look at the planes (you know that I'm plane or possibly plain crazy) the ship sailed. The light at that time of day with the sun low in the sky was perfect for landscape photography - the colours absolutely glow!



Dinner with 4 Hungarians who after we introduced ourselves almost completely ignored us, speaking entirely in Hungarian, except, it has to be said, to offer us some of their delicious Hungarian dessert wine with our sorbets, but then going back immediately to Hungarian.



Because of the high river levels the ship is way behind in it's sailing schedule, but Viking are trying to stick to their tour schedule by busing people on ahead each day - 90 to 120 minute journeys either side of your city tour!! Needless to say we have opted out of that. It's lovely just staying on board and watching the scenery glide past, either from the open air part of the lounge, or from our enormous sliding cabin window.



There are supposed to be 5 photos posted, but the Wi-Fi link is very slow again! I think 2 photos have made it so far.

Here's the photo link -

Photo Gallery

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