Passau and Nuremberg - the Bus Trips

We awoke in Passau knowing that our sailing days were over - for this trip anyways! And with the changes in the itinerary it meant some longer bus rides were in store. Unfortunately, many of us were getting pretty tired of long bus rides, and this coloured our touring for this stop.

We had planned to go to Kelheim from Passau, to visit the Danube Gorge, but we were told that, due to the low water levels, there was practically no water in the gorge and the tour boat wasn't running. So we would be riding the bus for 2 hours each way to see what, exactly?? We used the day to wander around Passau and get a few things caught up - like the blog.

Our original itinerary for the cruise would take us to the town of Deggendorf after Passau, from where we were going to visit the medieval town of Straubing, which was the birthplace of one of Monica's parents' friends, Elli. Because of the distances again, Tauck gave us a number of other options to replace this one, including a guided tour of Passau and an organ recital in the Passau Cathedral. Why, you ask? Because the organ in the Passau Cathedral has 17,997 pipes and really fills the room - an experience not to be missed!

As almost every other town in Europe, Passau has its
memorial to the Black Plague, erected in
thanks for surviving it.

Looking across the Inn River, which along with the Danube
come together at Passau to form the larger Danube. The
third river, the Ilz, joins them a little ways away from the town.

Now looking across the Danube at the Veste Oberhaus,
a 13th Century fortress.

The town hall clock tower from the
town side. Most of the time we see it
from the river.

The town square and town hall from the front

On the front of the clock tower, the high water
marks and their dates. We wondered if they were
going to dig a ditch to show this year's low water.
Just to show how weird the weather has been,
one of the highest marks was in 2013!

Looking at some of the houses across the river from town

The front of  St. Stephen's Cathedral

In the courtyard

A few of the organ pipes, and the ornate interior decoration

More of the inside of the cathedral, including
the altar and the cupola

Amazing decoration - the pulpit is
wood, covered in gold leaf

 After the organ concert, we walked down to the 'pointy end' of Passau, to find the confluence of the Danube and the Inn.

The dark blue on the left is the Danube; the green coming
from the right is the Inn. It is the Inn that gives
the Danube its strong current.

Of course, we had to have lunch. Usually every town has a 'Ratskeller', or the cellar under the Town Hall where they serve food, beer and wine. Passau's Ratskeller is so popular that they also serve on the town square!

Yes! One more time with the Weissbier

Larry had goulasch with two bread dumplings!

Another of Monica's favourites - German
veal meatloaf, known as Leberkaes,
with potato salad

And just because we hadn't done it yet, we went looking for a bakery for a snack we could have later:

We bought a couple of plum danishes and had them with coffee
(or cappuccino) in our suite.

The original final stop for the river cruise was to have been in Nuremberg (or Nürnberg if you're German), but of course, we couldn't get there by boat so we were to take the buses again, as we needed to be there on Saturday morning to catch our train to Berlin. There were two tours for Nuremberg - one going to the town of Bayreuth (Bye-royt, not Bayruth) which was more a musical history tour, and the other a World War II history tour in Nuremberg. You can guess that we split up for these tours, as did a few other couples. But as we were now getting to Nuremberg by bus, the Bayreuth tour would take 4 hours to get there from Passau and then need another hour to Nuremberg. The World War II tour would take 3 hours to get to Nuremberg and then do their touring locally. So quite a few people bailed on the Bayreuth tour to save some bus time. Monica always has something to do on long bus trips - this time it was knitting, so she didn't mind the ride.

Here are the photos from our two tours. Up first, Monica's tour to Bayreuth:

Even here we found scaffolding, on, what else? a church!

One of the places we visited in Bayreuth was the Steingraeber piano factory. Most people haven't heard of this manufacturer, probably because it is a very small company that only turns out 60 to 70 upright and the same number of grand pianos every year, to the absolute highest quality. Steingraeber has been building pianos since 1859 and is still run by the same family. Their biggest claim to fame was the development in the 1870s of the metal piano frame that made concert pianos much more able to withstand the abuse they took from the likes of Franz Liszt, known for his virtuosic performances. Because he so liked the Steingraeber pianos, Liszt had his own instrument at the company salon, where he would both play and teach when he was in Bayreuth. During the tour, Monica had the chance to try out three pianos made at different times to demonstrate how the tones changed as manufacturing processes developed. One of these pianos was the very instrument that Liszt played! Although the workings had been upgraded later, the body and the keys were still original. What a thrill!!

The Liszt Grand Piano, still standing in the same room
where Liszt played it

During our tour, a demo of how a piano works

Monica playing the Liszt piano...

...and another one from a slightly later period

A lovely fountain across from the Opera House

Sitting with a statue of Wagner and his
dog

Pretty window boxes

Bayreuth, though it is not a large city, has two opera houses. The original one, the Margravial Opera House, was built by Margrave Frederick and his wife, Princess Wilhelmine, to bring culture to the city and make it more royal. Although the outside is not spectacular, the inside was very ornately decorated. When Richard Wagner was invited here to present his operas, he refused to have them performed there, and insisted on a new opera house. Eventually they gave in, and allowed him to build his own opera house, known as the Festspielhaus, where the Richard Wagner Festival still takes place annually.

The outside of the Margravial Opera House

Inside the Margravial Opera House

Now, on to Larry's tour to Nuremberg:

Keeping with the overall WW II theme, the tour took them to some of the important sites in the Nuremberg area. While the Nazi Party was "born" in Munich, Nuremberg was its "spiritual" home where the annual Party rallies took place, and where some of the worst excesses, like the Nuremberg Racial Laws, were first passed.

In some respects, the tour took place in reverse order, with the first stop being the Palace of Justice, where the Nuremberg Trials took place. The building, and the attached prison, where the defendants were housed, still stands and are still in use to this day. Court Room 600, where the trials took place, is today a criminal court room and while it has been changed over the years, enough remains the same so as to give you a "feel" for what took place there. A picture in the outer lobby shows the court room as it appeared then, and as it appears today.

The second stop on the tour was at Zeppelin Field where the annual rallies took place. The "monumental" grandstand still stands and the balcony with the railings, the Fuerher Rostrum, is where Hitler made his speeches from. The grandstand at the time was topped, at the top behind the Rostrum, with a massive 100 foot high wreathed swastika that was blown up, in rather spectacular fashion, by the US Corps of Engineers after the war. The field area was built to hold 150,000 to 200,000 people and during the rallies antiaircraft searchlights were mounted on the structures around the field, pointing straight up, to create a "Cathedral of Light" effect for the night time meetings.

As a side note, the Zeppelin Field was so named after Graf Zeppelin landed one of his first airships there, though not the one that crashed in New Jersey in the early 1930s.

The final stop of this tour was at the Documentation Centre. As mentioned earlier, Nuremberg was the spiritual home of the movement, and the rise, life and eventual fall of Nazism are documented over 18 rooms with numerous displays of actual documents and pictures from the time, including the movie of the swastika being blown up!! Even though this stop was 90 minutes long it was impossible to do any more than scratch the surface.

We finally met again at the Sheraton Hotel at around 5:00 but there wasn't enough time to even wander around the old town, only a few minutes away. Buffet dinner, bed and bags ready for pickup at 6:30 in the morning....the only downside to organized tours!