Day 8 Passau & Vilshofen

Our last day on the ship was split between the almost "twin" towns of Passau and Vilshofen. The towns are so close together that almost every other river cruise ends in Passau and it is a major "turn around" point for the Danube cruises.


Monica was up early again to take advantage of the last morning's sailing. Here's some of what we saw on the way:

Passau's main claim to fame is that it is at the junction of three rivers, of which the Danube and the Inn are the main ones. When looking at both of the rivers, it is easy to see that much of the Danube's strong current below this point comes from the Inn.

Passau is yet another very old city, but small enough and far enough away from the main cities that it was not harmed during the war. The town fortress still bears, in large numbers, the date 1488, which is when it was built. Of course, no tour is complete without the visit to the town square. In this case, it is right on the Danube. The other obligatory visit is usually the town's main church or cathedral. In Passau, this is a must-see. It is one of the most beautiful we've seen on this trip so far.

Since we were only there for about 5 hours, we wandered around a little after the tour and headed back to the ship to start our packing. But of course, there was another theme lunch - Oktoberfest. Here's a quick view of some of the offerings on the lunchtime buffet:

We didn't want to miss the last brief sail, about 3 hours to Vilshofen, so we got the suitcases mostly packed up and then headed up on deck. Not long before Vilshofen we went through the last lock – most of the others were night-time transits, since we certainly don't remember most of the other nine – and everyone who hadn't been paying attention earlier was on deck to see it.

In Vilshofen we were scheduled to have a bit of an Oktoberfest celebration just outside the ship, just before the Captain's Farewell cocktail party, but the weather chose not to co-operate. It started raining not long after our arrival, so the festivities had to be moved inside. Unfortunately, it was kind of crowded in the main lounge and that made it difficult to get any good photos.

We had a nice chat with the Captain after the party and got some good tips from him about cruising on the Danube that Larry will surely pass on to his clients.

Although we didn't get any Oktoberfest photos, we did, however, get a couple of nice photos taken at the bar (by the bartender Tamasz from Budapest – who we missed by 'that much' on our previous river cruise in France because he was on vacation from that ship the week we were on it) and by Kerry, at the Captain's Dinner.

And to keep with this cruise theme of Food, Food and More Food, here's the special dessert the kitchen made for us, and presented with a Baked Alaska Parade: