The overnight cruise upriver was supposed to let us off for a day in the antique German city of Krems, but an unexplained circumstance substituted the Abbey of Melk.  Remembering the narrator of The Name of the Rose as Aldo of Melk, the switch seemed promising. However much of the visit was spent waiting in a stationary bus and standing in line. Rather than a medieval monastery with a real scriptorium, Melk had been rebuilt in ornate Baroque style during the 18th century and has recently been turned into a crude theme-park like museum financed by its sale of an original Gutenberg Bible to Harvard University.

Back on the boat we entered the Wachau Valley, famed for its mountainous banks, ancient castle ruins and vineyards which produce the Gruener Veltliner wines we enjoyed on board and in Salzburg and Munich.

Beyond the valley we docked at Passau, also known as “Dreiflussstadt,” a city with rich heritage and  a unique  position at the confluence of three navigable rivers, the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz

I took an early morning walk to a park at one of the confluence points, where I felt the power of the merging flows that periodically flood the city up to 20 feet above the street.  I could sense the age-old strategic and commercial value of the location.

Upstream along the Inn I found Schaibling Tower, built in the 13th century as a defensive fort, used later as a salt warehouse, and today as an event venue and hotel,

and followed a cobbled walkway uphill toward the city center

through an echoing set of tunnels

to the central square fronting another splendid cathedral.

The guide leading a group of cruise passengers I joined mentioned that the young Adolph Hitler lived with his family in Passau and later designated it as a site for two concentration camps.  Jan was with the group, and together we decided to attend a noontime organ concert inside the cathedral.

I wanted to walk across the Danube bridge up to the castle overlooking the confluence

above the tunnel that issued in another bridge crossing the Iser.

But it was time to move on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 4th, 2024 and is filed under Europe 2024, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.