Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Winding down in the "City of Three Rivers" - Day 13 - June 7, 2016

We've come to our final port day on our river cruise. It's a bit hard to be excited, when your sad to be leaving such a wonderful ship and crew! But that being said, we had another full day planned, so we'd push on and do our best! ;) Today we'd be in Passau, Germany!  Passau was founded by the Celts over 2,000 years ago and is one of Bavaria's oldest cities.  It sits at the confluence of the Inn, Ilz and Danube rivers, and is therefore known as the "City of Three Rivers".  Passau is also where the German - Austrian border begins!









We'd begin today with a guided walking tour of Passau. 














Today's walking tours were split up into groups for gentle walking and a more fast paced walking. Passau is a town that has a bit more hills in it than some of the other villages we've been in. Viking is very good about accommodating all of their guests needs when it comes to seeing the sites! Alex and I went with the standard tour and Alycen and Katie went with the gentle walkers.  We met up with them a couple of times during the day, so we're pretty sure we all saw essentially the same things for the most part, just getting to them by different pathways. 


Passau has experienced many, many floods over the years. The marks on the side of the buildings, next to the light, show the levels of the floodwaters.  It's hard to even imagine!





























Passau is known for its pastel colored buildings, and its "Italianate-style" streets. 
















































Even the scooters provide a colorful palette!















 More flood markings on this building!







This street below is decorated with a different theme every year. 







































Our tour ended at St. Stephen's Cathedral. We could stay and listen to an organ concert on Europe's largest pipe organ - which has more than 17,000 pipes!  Or we could go shop....we went shopping!

















It was one of our last days to pick up a few gifts to bring back home!








This was a beautiful town!
















Of course we also stopped for a snack as well!




A bit more shopping and then we walked back to the boat for lunch!






























We had a great morning in Passau! The day was still only half over though! We still had lunch and then we were going on an optional afternoon excursion afterward! Stay tuned!