“To travel is to take a trip within yourself” Danny Kaye
The cruise up to Passau was pleasant, in the way that we woke up and were already there. Waking up somewhere you didn’t fall asleep is always interesting and we’ve been doing it daily on this trip! We took a walking tour in the morning and straight off the boat saw this little park down where the rivers meet, Passau is the city of three rivers, and they were setting up for quite the shindig. A beer and comedy festival with tents and music, really quite the event. Everywhere we’ve been they appear to be doing something every weekend but from what I’ve heard about the winters I would use every bit of nice weather I got too! We walked along the river and saw a religious pilgrimage site with 321 steps leading up to a church where people stop and pray on each one and a nifty thing about this church is there is a brewery attached so as we were informed technically the beer they brew is holy, not sure if that’s true or not but it was tasty. Another interesting, yah, let’s say interesting tidbit, is right below this church once lived “maybe the most hated man on all the world, maybe” as the guide put it, you have an idea who that might have been? Yah, it was hitler. He apparently fell in the river as a boy and nearly drown before some dumbass saved his shitty life, something the other boy who grew up and became a priest apparently regretted later on life. (Hitlers house)An interesting thing that happens when you live where three rivers meet is they tend to flood, a when they flood, they flood a lot. Over the last 100 years this little town had really been put to the test and as recently as 2013 when the rivers came to collect the lands between them. Apparently the villagers accept this as part of life and claim this is where is home and they wouldn’t think of leaving. We saw some photos when the flood came and it covered everything with mud and silt from the river bed and took a great deal of effort, manpower and will to clean but they claim the village is more beautiful now than it has ever been, and it is a pretty beautiful little village. 
At the end of our walking tour we attended a organ concert where someone played the largest organ in Europe which happen to be in this small town. To be honest, Alex and I both agreed we could have taken or left this part. While it was interesting to see and hear, the guy started playing and then played some more and some more and some more and some more and some more and some more and some more……I’m sorry I drifted off there. Ah hem, anyway he was ok but in all honesty he was kinda sloppy and droning, then again I am a bit quick to judge as I play music myself and it seemed like he was phoning it in. We were not the majority it would seem as some people reacted as if god rode the notes into their ears and set up shop in their heart. And well good for them, their god likes sloppy music with rolling slurs and unenthusiastic movement all played in double forte. (Picture or the organ)We walked through town on our way back to our ship interlacing side streets as we were followed by elderly lost ship patrons stalked us down the streets like a jerryatrick lion dressed up like dick van dyke in the first scene you saw him in Mary Poppins. We had a quick lunch on the sun deck back aboard and an even quicker nap and then it was off again! Our drive consisting of an hour and a half passing in and out over the Austrian and German boarder and we came to the small town of Schärding an adorable little place where all the buildings are painted different colors. 
From here and deciding we hadn’t had enough cruise on our cruise, we went on a small separate river cruise! We went up a small environmentally protected finger of the river in a completely silent boat where the people aboard were dressed in traditional clothing and thus my obsession with lederhosen has officially started, to the woe of my future wallet, as apparently it’s not double or triple what I thought it would cost but five times what I though they get for those little shorts! Then again I learned much more goes into their making, they really are an impressive pair of britches. We learned on our tangent cruise about tricky Catholics who getting sick of fish and believing beaver tails looked like fish nearly wiped out the beaver population in this area, I’m just telling you want the guide said here people. 
Then came the beer and pretzels! They served it with this interesting yet tasty spread, a mix of Camembert cheese and butter with paprika and a little cumin. It was actually delicious although it was incredibly rich. Alex and I kept making note of how similar the scenery was to the Carolinas and parts of Tennessee. At points it looked just like some rivers we raft in NC. The river wound between to very small towns, literally one had only 10 buildings and the other wasn’t even visible through the trees. We pulled a super hardcore and slow motion 360 under a walking suspension bridge and tied to a staircase that led into the river, totally tubular. We walked the plank back to shore and crossed the bridge that seemed to dip under ever step, this was made worse when you would look down and the decking of the bridge was a metal grate. Coming off the bridge we learned that some fancy pants built a house on the river bank next to the bridge and he liked the way a plague monument looked so he made one for his back yard, like I said before the people here are macabre. 
Full of beer and pretzels we re-boarded our bus and took a lovey long drive through the countryside which seems to make up this whole country back to Passau and our original boat. One thing that’s become clear is that Germany is taking green energy much more seriously than we are back in the States, everywhere has wind turbines or solar panels, people in small houses all have little gardens in their yards in and out of town and many of the farms have parts growing maze for bio diesel. Many of the cars are electric as are the buses and taxies and trains. That being said and everywhere being so clean and pretty, you do tend to get odd whiffs every now and again, some from the river, some from of the sewers, but mostly from the old people that fart in public and blow your hair back as they pass you.
Erroll & Alex's European Honeymoon Trip! 