Webbpage Travel Blog

Krems was our port of call.  Hence the label.  The city is in Austria first documented in 995.  But obviously, it is much older, with a child's grave dated 27,000 years old.

This is a view of small town approaching Krems with a castle at the base of the hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another church, I didn't catch the name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of interest, we passed quite a few miles of vineyards on the wasy.  the neat feature was that the vineyards are on the side of rather steep hillsides.  No industrial farming, the only access is by foot, backbreaking work.  Some of the vineyards are over a 1000 years old and apparently well kept.  You can see the terracing here between rocky crags that prevent growth to the left or right.  Pay attention to future pix.  The vineyards sneek in quite a few times.

 

 

 

 

 

Ahh, another church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yet another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more for posterity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I wanted more castles.  A reward for my patience.  This is Durnstein Castle with a 180 degree view of the river below.  Great view to monitor trade travel and enemy advancements.  Durnstein will be mentioned again at the end of this set of pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We'll get multiple views of this church as we sail down the river. this view is under the castle looking from the north-west.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view further downstream to grab the church and associated monastery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This view is from the south, recapturing the castle on the hill.  My thought here dwelled on the dominance of the city by the chruch, with next level dominance by the castle.  Capped of by the church probably announcing that God actually has the utlimate dominant position.  I admired the blue of the steeple, something not seen on any other church during this trip.

 

 

 

 

 

As we sailed further south-east on the river this last shot accentuated the view from the castle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We start to sail into Krems proper with, you guessed it, a church dead center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After docking, we started an excursion to Gottweig Abbey. This excursion didn't require a 2 1/2 bus ride....  Our first glimpse was of the variant of an onion top spire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obviously the monks claimed this spot for the view, maginificent from every angle.  The little town down this slope becomes a haven for the monks in one difficult scenario.  

The monks were evicted in the 2nd world war with the Nazis establishing the abbey as a command center and training facility.  During that period, most of the relics and valuables were stolen, by the Nazis and the local townspeople. Some of the valuables were returned as the monks visited local houses and noted that some of the furnishings were originally from the abbey.  oops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gorgeous view of the abbey, and yes that's Lisa on the path.  To the right is the cathedral.  to the left is the administrative and living quarters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you enter the gate, immediately on the left is a couple of disconnected buildings.  There were/are the barn, care centers for the abbey animals, a blacksmith and some servant quarters.  The key here is the fact that this section burnt down in 1580 and 1718.  Both fires started in this section centered on the blacksmith operation.  A rebuild was completed after both fires, with the second build failing to complete the entire layout of the abbey.

 

Inside the church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pipes of the organ, both functional and fantistically decorated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view of the interior, can you imagine worshipping here????

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the basment, I came across this old organ.  The keyboard suggests a build date at least 500 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our tour guide was enthralled with this ceiling mural. It incorporated historic, religious and mythical characters, telling multiple stories.  We noted that a mirror was installed at the top of the stairs so that you could examine the ceiling without bending over backwards to see the features.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little nook was dedicated to a few trinkets that showed the "products" of the abbey, like wine, jams and tonics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last view from the abbey to the town below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, one last view of one of the towers on the corner of the abbey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got back to the ship and begin sailing to our next stop.  I snapped this picture just to prove that not everything along the river was over 2 centuries old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to my surprise, another church as we approach our next major town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very interesting.  On the bank of the river was a statue.  Zooming in we discovered that this is a memorial to Richard the Lionheart.  He returned to Great Britain through central Europe from the third crusade in 1192/93 (alledgedly along this path).  Why they erected this statue is a wonder.  He was captured by Duke Leopold in late 1992 and a series of trials ensued that involved an emporer and the pope before Lionheart was finally released. Remeber Durnstien Castle???  Lionheart was initially held captive there. History is everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhh, Passau.  This was one of my highlights.  Passau is big enough to justify the title of city while being small enough to be able to walk to most of the sites. This is a view of the Veste Oberhaus.  We'll come back to this for a variety of views.  But, It was built in 1219 as a fortress and has a great 180 degree view of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing historic to see here.  But this is a small excursion group waiting for their bus.  It shows that we weren't the only ones on the ship. But our group of 24 (out of 175) became well know by the rest of the tourists. We met some interesting people, and became travel buddies with quite a few.  

 

 

 

 

 

Again, nothing historic, but met the guy in the white t-shirt on the first morning.  I was drinking coffee and relaxing while he was walking laps around the top deck.  He had on a shirt that quoted Micah 6:8, so I called him Micah for the trip (even though his name was John).  He and his wife recently retired from teaching.  Another shirt he wore had Latitude 71.10N (northern Norway) and 66.5 S (the Antartic Circle).  These were the end points of his last cruise from the top to the bottom of the Atlantic.  Cool.

 

 

 

 

Just an example of dwellings on the shore near Passau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passau is the "three river's city" where the Danube, the Inn river and the River Ilz meet.  More on that later.  Of course we had someone from Pittsburgh explaining the similarities.

This picture is where the rive Ilz meets the Danube.  It's at the base of the sharp incline to the Veste Oberhaus.

 

 

 

 

More shoreline pictures.  Don't worry, I'll have more.  This is looking over the Inn River from the jetty between the Inn and the Danube. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking up the Inn River we start to get a feel for Passau on the right hand shore.  Our tourguide took us up this shoreline past the small defense post/toll station (the Schaiblingsturm) before walking into the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I grabbed a picture of the baroque pilgrimage church Mariahilf, not realizing that I would capture multiple views later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the inside of the Niedernburg Monastery Holy Cross Church, the first of three churches we visited.  Our tour guide was enthralled with this church, even though it had a much lower relegation (tourist wise) than the other churches (and a bunch that we didn't visit).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I'm a keybaord guy, I was atracted to this 1700ish pump organ in one of the side rooms.  Yes they had a much larger organ in the main room.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bajor Gizella is buried here. She was the Bavarian wife of St. István, the first Hungarian king.  István is Stephen, who's namesake cathedral I'll show soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are a couple of the relic bones of the Blessed Gisela.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And important items from St Stephen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll let you translate this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To show the importance of religion in both history and culture, this is the front of a house along an alley with a mural of the Virgin Mary on the outside wall.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another veiw of the Veste Oberhaus. I didn't do it justice on this shot, but all but a couple of the windows on the front of this building are paintings.  They didn't want a lot of windows due to protection issues, maintenance costs and taxes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we walked through the plaza, we got a nice view of the St. Johannis-Spital-Stift.  Someday I'll get that translated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first freshamn year of college (yes, you read that right) I attended Brandeis University.  We had a small bar on the edge of the campus named the Ratskeller.  Seeing this in Passau brought back incomplete memories. Interesting that a Jewish school gave their pub a traditional German name.

 

 

 

 

 

Serious moment where the major floods of Pasau are labeled on this wall.  We found a small number of labeled insets in various alleys for specific floods over the ages, but this captured the significant ones. Having our guide standing in front of the wall gives you a great sense of the destruction the Danube and Inn rivers brought to this city. Side note: the fourth entry from the top was the flood of 10 July 1954, 1 month after I was born. The top entry is from 1501 and the second entry in 2013 being the most recent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is our first picture of St Stephen's Cathedral. The first of 3 St Stephen's Cathedrals during our trip.  Note the onion top. This cathedral has 8 bells, 3 of which are clock bells.  Of more interest to me. St. Stephens houses the largest organ outside the U. S. It has 17,744 pipes and 6 consoles. Our tourguide showed us a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the organ in 2017.  No, I wasn't allowed to try.

 

 

 

 

A second view of St Stephen's with Wittlesbach Fountain in the foreground.  Built in 1903 it features Mary and three angels.  Each angel represents one of the rivers.

BTW, if you google Wittelsbach Fountain, you'll also find one in Munich and another in Linz, Austria. Wittelsbach's get around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa said I could go into the cuckoo clock store, but I couldn't bring my wallet.  Took a picture instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proof of life picture in front of St Stephen's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a view of the bridge over the Danube from about 180 feet up a rather steep hill.  The hill that Veste Oberhaus sits on.  There are two ways to get to Veste.  One is to take a town-go-round for 5 euros. The second is to climb the face of the hill starting at the bridge.  Two choices on that climb, one branch to the left and another to the right.  Dave and I opted for the climb and chose the left.  Apparently the left trail is about 5 times longer than the right.  Sigh.  Jeff and the ladies opted for the bus ride.  

 

 

And back to the baroque pilgrimage church Mariahilf. A covered stairway with 321 steps leads up to the pilgrimage chapel. It is said that if you kneel and pray at each step, it will take you 8 hours to get to the chapel. 

This is the view from the trail with a photo taken on one of our multiple rest, I mean, panoramic view stops.

 

 

 

 

 

On another panoramic view stop, we get a different vantage of St Stephen's cathedral.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yet another panoramic view stop....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we're at the top.  This picture shows one of the peculiarities of the three rivers, called a convergence.  The Inn river is actually green, sourced by the melting ice in Switzerland.  The "Blue" Danube is actually dark grey.  When the two rivers meet the green of Inn overwhelms the Gray of the Blue.  The Ilx River is black.  You can't actually note it in this view, but it's the smallest of the three and it's contribution is washed out, from a color standpoint.

 

 

 

Another view of the convergence.  You can see our ship docked just left of center.  We are the "Thor", moored against the shore.  The "Tir" is moored to us.  They piggy back ships at all the docking locations, sometimes four at a time.  If we're on the outside we walk through the other ship(s) to get to the shore.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the backside of Veste. That wall is about 60 feet tall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the side of Veste is an aqueduct between the main buiding and a secondary building. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted a better model, but he'll do.  This is the start of the "short' walk down to the bridge.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defensive structure to slow down the riff-raff attacking the fortress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alas, I was expecting to see a frenchman throwing insults and cows down on us at this point.  Not to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we're back on the ship.  This is what I was originally expecting.  With the loss of a day from Regensburg and another getting to Budapest, there wasn't as much scenery as anticipated.  This is one of many castles noted along the Danube.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A closer view of the castle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A typical view of riverside towns along the river.  It appeared that the dominant industry for these towns was farming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another town.  Note the onion top.  There was always at least one church prominant for each town.  Some towns had multiple churches.  Understand that the average size of a town was probably less than 1000 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the large towns, again with a double steepled church in the center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closer look at the double-steepled church. Oh yeah, note the onion top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Might have been my only sunset picture on the trip.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa enjoyed as many sunrises and sinsets as possible.  You can reach out to her for more of those pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last picture for the day.  This was sitting on the water's edge.  With a nice beach to the side.  Note the discoloration on the first floor wall that marks aveage water height for that location. good night.