Travel Log - Passau, Germany

Passau was our first stop in Germany - they have 3 rivers that meet in the city so the first instructions we were given is to make sure that if you asked someone how to get back to the boat you specified what river you're on, good tip haha. We went on a guided walking tour in the morning and had the best guide (Andrea), she was very knowledgeable but also entertaining; something I learned on this trip is that there is one thing that makes the biggest difference when on a tour - getting the right guide!

There's the kind of guide that knows a lot (and tells you all of it) so you feel like you're in a lecture and hoping there isn't a test coming at the end, and then there's finding out the important things you want to know about a place and still be entertained! Andrea would give us info with names and dates and then go "but you don't have to remember any of that - just remember this..." and give us a solid piece of interesting history. Nice. Don't get me started on the last tour guide that spent at least 30 minutes pointing at a genealogy tree from like the 15th century and describing each person in succession. I was trying very hard to not roll my eyes at her. Back to Andrea.

Andrea and her Drindl, bow on the right :)

She's a great storyteller - one of my favorites was about the way they tie the bow on their dirndl (their "traditional" dress which apparently has been out of favor by everyone except for during Oktoberfest but is starting to become popular again): Andrea was wearing one for the tour and explained that you can tell a woman's status depending on where she ties the bow - if it's tied on the right she is married or taken, in the back she is a widow, on the left she's single and dating, in the middle she's a virgin (she loudly whispered "there's not many that can tie it in the middle"). Then she changed the subject to drinking beer, how much Germans love their beer, how drinking too many beers leads to thinking you are a very good singer, and if like her you drink too much beer one night you might enter the beer garden (a bar) with your bow in the middle but leave with it tied on the side! She was laughing when she said it so I'm pretty sure it was a German beer and Dirndl joke LOL!

I didn't look it up but this appears to
be a white Mallard? Unusual (to me anyway!).

this is now being used as a boys school

Can't remember the name of this church but
it's my favorite, totally different than any
other on this trip - so calm, simple
and serene. I took pictures of everything from
the color scheme to the light fixtures hoping to
be able to channel this feeling in my house! Love.


We (no surprise here) toured some churches, walked around town, went to an organ concert at St. Stephan's Cathedral where they have the largest cathedral organ in the world - beautiful. Although I have to say I had the biggest distraction in front of me during the concert -  watching the woman in a pew ahead of us repeatedly fall asleep, droop over almost touching the person next to her, then when a super loud organ chord played she'd jerk straight up only to immediately droop over asleep again! In the afternoon we had free time and spent it (to the "joy" of the hubbies...) walking around town shopping :). 

For lunch we went to a super cute outdoor restaurant in the rain (the patio was covered with umbrellas), the guys had schnitzel but I went for cheese spaetzle (sort of a noodle/small dumpling thing - I googled it and think the name of this dish is Käsespätzle) and it was like having the best mac and cheese ever. I died. It was SO GOOD!!!! Anyway, back to the cruise...

cheesy spaetzle. omg.

That night on the boat we decided that things needed to be livened up, enough with the "love boat" background piano music and no one dancing...so we made a list of songs for the piano man to play (Mr. Zoltan was a good sport - unfortunately someone wrote the "chicken dance" on the list and that was the first one he played - all of the non-Americans on board just stared at us HA!) and off we went to round up others to dance. Cathy started a Conga line and sure enough talked everyone in the lounge into participating. Even Danijela and Rad our bartender/dance teachers got involved. So much fun!

Cathy and Rad