Danube Bike Tour Day 17: Passau
Posted by Cassie, November 25th, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Today, we spent the day exploring Passau. We had the strangest weather today. It was sunny when we left the hostel. I was optimistic about the weather, so I decided not to wear my rain jacket. As we started walking into the city, it started to pour, and the wind picked up to blow the rain into your face. We took shelter under a covered church door. The rain shower did not last very long, but it was enough that I was completely soaked and cold. The weather was like this throughout the day. Just when you thought the rain had cleared up, it would rain again.
We went to the St. Stephen cathedral for the organ concert, and we were glad to be inside a warm, dry place. The St. Stephen cathedral has the largest church organ in the world with 17,974 pipes and 233 registers, and they have daily organ concerts. The organ is actually made up of several separate organs that are accessible from one console. The organ concert was beautiful. You could feel the vibrations from the organ. The entire church was full of people- there wasn’t an empty seat in the place. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like during peak season. The bike book said that the line extends outside the church an hour before the concert begins during the summer. There were a lot of people in the church that were on the big bus tours, and they began leaving before the concert was over. The concert was only a half hour, and they could not last that long. I thought it seemed rude that they left early, and we couldn’t hear the last song as well with all the people moving around. The inside of the cathedral was also beautiful. The original structure was destroyed in a fire, and it was rebuilt in baroque style. There were amazing frescoes painted on the ceiling, and the pulpit was completely covered in gold.
St. Stephen Cathedral Organ
After the concert, we were hungry for lunch. However, our timing was horrible because we were heading for lunch just as all the kids got out of school. We had to wait in a long line behind all the kids at the kebab place. 🙂 After lunch, we went back to the hostel to get warmer clothes since we were both cold and wet. It started raining again when we walked back to the hostel, but this was actually a good thing because it was cleared up by the time we had our extra layers of clothes on.
Passau was at the confluence of three rivers: the Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers. The confluence was very neat because each river has a different color, so you could see where they meet and merge together to make a different color. The Inn River was emerald green, and the Danube was a muddy brown. The Ilz River was much smaller than the other two rivers, but we could still see that it was different shade of brown than the Danube. At the overlook of the confluence, we also had a neat view of the city. While we were at the overlook, it began to rain again. However, the rain created a beautiful, full rainbow. It was largest rainbow I had ever seen.
Confluence of Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers
View of Passau from overlook
Rainbow!
We stopped at the strangest place to check email. The sign outside said there was Internet, but it was actually a laundromat. The woman running the laundromat had one computer that people could use to check the Internet while they were waiting for their laundry. In order to check the Internet, we went to some strange places. In Neuburg, we checked the Internet in the basement of a bar. The computers were mostly set up for playing poker on the Internet, and they were also coin-operated like at an arcade. I think we were one of the few people that used the computers to check email.
I enjoyed Passau, but I was ready to leave the hostel. The hostel had so many rules that were not clear, and I never felt comfortable staying there. It seemed like every time we did something, someone would yell at us for breaking the rules. Last night, we asked if they had a kitchen that guests could use, but they said no. We went outside the hostel, and we cooked with our camping stove by some benches. The woman came outside and told us that no “fires” were allowed on the castle grounds. Tonight, we decided to have bread and cheese for dinner since we could not cook. We went into the dining hall and sat down to eat. A woman came and told us that we were not allowed to eat our own food there. Then, she took us to the “Tea Kitchen” where we were allowed to eat. The “Tea Kitchen” would have been perfect for us to cook our dinner last night, so I don’t know why they said that there was no kitchen. It was strange because the “Tea Kitchen” was not open, and the woman had to unlock it for us. It seemed like it was more like a kitchen for the staff, and they were allowing us to use it. At least they had a place we could eat our dinner. While we were eating, we were joined by one of the guys that was staying in Jonathan’s room. We invited him to join us at the only table in the kitchen. He was not impressed with the hostel either because it didn’t have an iron. 🙂 He made noodle soup in the kitchen, but there were no regular spoons. He ended up eating his soup with a big wooden spoon. 🙂
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