December 16
Due to a delay at one of the locks we didn’t reach our destination Passau. We docked in a small village where busses took some to an optional full day tour to Salzburg but spending 5 or more hours in a bus didn’t appeal to us so we took the 30 minute ride to Passau. There is still a lot of snow on the ground and flurries are falling constantly but, with sunshine, it’s quite pretty in spite of the below freezing temperatures. Passau is an interesting medieval town with narrow winding alleys. Passau is at the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers and is close to the borders of Germany, Austria & Czech Republic. A fire in the 1300s wiped out all of the roofs and some top stories of buildings, which were wood, and the city was rebuilt. This situation created a mix of Gothic and Baroque styles combined in the same buildings and churches. The St Joseph’s Cathedral is extremely ornate inside with many frescoes and the world’s largest church organ with over 17,000 pipes. This is a Christmas market oriented cruise so the market is always the last stop of the visit. The boat had reached Passau so we walked to the dock and boarded just before lunch and sailed towards Linz.
We got to Linz in the dark after dinner and walked into the Christmas market. It was bitter cold and snow flurries were falling. It was a small market, more oriented towards food & drink rather than handicrafts and there were a lot of 20 & 30 somethings trolling for dates. We walked back to the boat in time for a performance by La Strada, a classical trio consisting of 2 violins & a guitar. They also played some Gypsy arrangements. We saw them last December on our Paris to Amsterdam river cruise and they were excellent.