Passau and Engelhartszell

 We woke to a beautiful view of low clouds over the hills on the other side of the Danube. Such a picturesque place to moor our boat. 

We were on our way early by bus to Passau, back across the border to Germany. We had the funniest tour guide called Julia. She taught us heaps about the city but had us laughing all the way. Passau is a smallish town which is known as the city of 3 rivers. The Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers all meet in Passau. Everything is in original form as Passau has never been attacked by outside forces. The biggest threat the city faces is an annual flood caused by snow melting upstream on the Inn and sending its flow downstream. Passau never really knows how big the flood is going to get and they have had some big ones including in 2024.

After our tour, we went into Cafe Stephans Dom to have an iced cappuccino. The name does not do justice to the incredibly delicious drink we enjoyed. Next stop was St Stephan's Cathedral for a 30 min organ concert. Not our first choice of music but it was pretty impressive to be in an enormous cathedral listening to the 2nd biggest pipe organ in the world.

We headed back to the Ostara. By now, Engelhartszell was bathed in beautiful blue skies and sunshine and it looked stunning.  We are so lucky to have had this interlude. It is just a piece of paradise on earth. After lunch, we headed up to the local church, the Engelzell Abbey This is a Trappist Monastery but there is only one monk left alive (who we met). The brewery attached to the monastery is still in production and we headed into the attached cafe to have a drink. Sitting in the garden of a Trappist monastery on a lovely later summer Saturday afternoon, sharing a drink with some of the people we have met on the cruise, is a memory that will stick in my mind long after I have forgotten other things about this trip. It was just lovely.

Tonight, we had some traditional Bavarian entertainment which was cheesy, silly and lots of fun.