PASSAU, GERMANY

Fifteen minutes after I signed out last night I looked out the window and what did I see….SNOW! I’m on vacation; I knew it would be cold by SNOW?!?

We’re on our way to Passau, which marks the border between Germany and Austria. Passau is in the Bavaria region of Germany. The people here consider themselves Bavarians first and Germans second. (Bavaria was a separate state before the War)

It’s still snowing this morning but not as heavy, but still bitter cold. I think when we come back in December I will be bringing my riding gear (including chaps!).

We did a walking tour of the town which had completely burned down during the Medieval times and was completely rebuilt. Narrow, curving cobblestoned streets, rising and falling are throughout the town. One section has colored cobblestones.. rumor has it that the stones were colored to help revelers during Carnival find their way home. But, alas, Melina, our tour director, busted that bubble…it’s marking the way to an art gallery.

Houses are built into the side of the mountain and the mountain becomes the walls of the home.

We past a restaurant that is known for it’s horsemeat dishes. It appears that Germans love horsemeat. Hopefully, our chef did not go ashore today!

We also past the ‘Scharfrichter House’ (Hangman) It seems that the hangman was not allowed to live inside the town, but when people were ill they would travel to the hangman, who they considered a doctor, to help with their ailments as he was very familiar with the human body. 

Another outcast was the dentist. Of course at that time there wasn't any pain medication and the patients would scream violently as they were being treated. To solve the problem, the dentist would hire a musician who would play loudly so that the neighbors were not disturbed by the screaming.

Passau is on a peninsula where the Danube is joined by the Inn and the Ilz rivers and often suffers from flooding. At the Town Hall they have a flood marker rising more than 20 feet. Recordings go back to 1500.

Instead of going back to the ship for lunch, we stayed in town and had a kasefraden (personal pan pizza) for 1.20E and strolled around the streets enjoying the street minstrels and all the Easter sweets in the shops. We picked up 'Goldhauben'.. candy with gold specs on it. The clerk told us we had 23 karat candy. We also picked up some needed essentials for the area...a hat, gloves, and leg warmers. If we don't use them know, we'll definitely need them in December.

St. Stephan’s, a baroque-style cathedral, is not very impressive from the outside, but enter and it takes your breath away.

Where the Melk Abbey was all goldleaf, St Stephan's is all white (like alabaster) and the frescoes very moving.

  

It still amazes me how these magni-ficant struc-tures could be built without modern technology. The cathedral is known for this magnificant organ which has 17,774 pipes…(and I thought the Melk Abbey had a lot!)

We'll be leaving Passau late afternoon and head for Regensburg which was founded over 2,000 years ago.  Till tomorrow.....