Passau, Town of Three Rivers

 In the morning we dropped off the people heading for Salzburg in the town of Aschach before continuing on to Passau. Our first impression for Aschach was that it looked like a child's perfectly completed colouring book.

On the way to Passau, we traveled through a winding area of the Danube known as the Schlögener Schlinge. It is a beautiful part of the river that includes a number of small villages and many campgrounds, most of which were quite busy now that summer is beginning

The area is dotted with fortresses and castles as the Danube was the northern border of the Roman Empire, and since that time many successive empires used them as the first line of defence.

We're not sure why someone placed these figures, made from what, we don't know, around their lot, but they sure look interesting from the water.

We arrived at Passau in the early afternoon, but had to leave by 4 p.m. Rather than take the walking tour, which would have been similar to one we had done before, we elected to walk around town on our own, and maybe sit down to have a beer at the Ratskeller outside the Town Hall.

This little 'stream' is actually the Ilz River,
where it flows into the Danube

The Cathedral of Passau. We went to an 
organ recital there the last time we were here.

The Jesuit Church

On the river at sunset

It looks like most of this little town was gathered on the
beach. It was a lovely evening

As you can see, there are no beer-drinking photos from our time in Passau. We had sat down at the Ratskeller for Monica to have that once per trip Weissbier, but after almost 10 minutes of being ignored by the serving staff, we gave up and went back to the ship instead.

This cruise has so far been very picturesque, and we have lots of daylight sailing time. This is different from most other cruises, but it also means that we have less time in the port towns, which isn't so great, especially as we want to experience a bit more of each place. At least it means we can keep the blog more or less up to date!