Given we had a bonus stop overnight in Engelszell it seemed rude not to step out and pay it a visit. It was a tiny place with a huge monastery complete with the cliche beer brewing monks. At the other end of the village was a pretty, well tended church and that was it basically. A pleasant post breakfast walk but not much more to entertain us.
After lunch we joined a coach to take us to Passau which was where we were supposed to dock last night. Despite there being a 22km direct route there the coach took us on a tortuous route that was more than twice the distance and a lot more than that in time. It was, however, more scenic and so we assumed that was the reason we were taken that way (later we heard that coaches weren’t allowed on the other route which I find unlikely but 🤷♂️).
We were dropped off in the centre of Passau with three hours to fill and an itinerary of our own to follow. The weather was once again much better than expected and we felt over dressed. Our first walk was along a road with multi-coloured paving stones which was an artist route – unfortunately the artists all seemed to have shut up shop so there wasn’t much to see.
At the end of the path we continued along the river bank as far as we could go to the confluence of the Danube and the Inn rivers. There isn’t much to report as it really was just two bodies of water joining but it was obvious which was which as they were very different colours when they joined (see picture in the header).
The rest of Passau was the usual attractive churches, civic buildings and and Christmas trees on poles.
Gala Dinner
Back on the boat in the evening it was ‘gala night’. The food on the river cruise has been very good so far but tonight they took it up notch with a seven course taster menu. I am always amazed at how they can create food for 100+ people to all arrive at the same time and be perfect.
