Not much to report for tonight’s activities. There’s nothing exciting like movie trivia scheduled. I assume Gavin along with the rest of us can’t handle super late nights two nights in a row.
We took the bus back to the ship for dinner. But first an appetizer oatmeal raisin cookie.
We sat in Milo and Erwin’s section with Jane and Paul. Dinner was as amazing as always!
Greg and I decided to sign up for an ebike tour after we heard Gavin talk about the remaining open excursions a few days ago. This one is a 14 mile (or so) ride from Passau to a small town and back.
We had a lot of time to kill at the beginning because one lady decided after taking forever to ask questions about the bike that she didn’t feel comfortable going. I’m pretty sure she had to just hang out in town for hours alone because the bus had left and the boat was moving to a new port. But anyway we got a late start.
We stopped in a small town Wertheim at a beer garden. Our ride took us from Germany, into Austria, and then back to Germany.
I got the lady size (duh) Radler. Everyone else got the regular size. Several of us tried to order a pretzel but they only had two so everyone cancelled so they didn’t take the last ones.
After our quick pit stop it was time to head back into town. We took a slightly different path this time.
Overall it was a great day. There was one issue with Kevin falling hard off his bike in the middle of city center. I’m still not exactly sure what happened but it was scary initially but he says he’s fine.
I’m not sure it was the best idea for a bunch of retired people who haven’t ridden in years to get on an ebike in the middle of a city and head out for a spin with a beer stop in the middle but hey, who am I to judge.
Oh, and now I want an ebike.
Upon our return to the boat we passed the coffee maker so it only felt right to grab a cappuccino. While I was there I happened to noticed they had Madelines in the treat basket. Don’t mind if I do! Greg even had one.
They said they had chocolate in them but they lied. But I’m not mad. I prefer the orange zest to chocolate.
Per our usual, we sat in Milo and Erwin’s section. This time with a mother daughter duo who asked if they could sit with us. They were from Kansas. The daughter joined the mom after her dad had passed before they could go on the cruise.
The menu looked so amazing I had trouble deciding.
I decided to go with the pasta. It was good but I also had a bite of Linda’s fish and it was so good. I was a little jealous.
Speaking of being jealous I’m the one who made the bad dessert choice. I went with the Floating Island and it was just ok. Greg’s sundae was way better.
Brigitta finished out tour by walking us just outside the Cathedral.
She shared that the black plague killed lots of people but also resulted in people being quarantined to their homes. A doctor would come around once a day in full protection gear to pass bread and water through the windows using a ten foot pole. Supposedly that’s where “I wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole” came from.
Also, they would occasionally mistake someone for dead and bury them. During that time they would reuse caskets so when they dug them up they occasionally find that the person had been buried alive and had tried to get out. They began putting a bell on the person’s hand and foot and would monitor the bells for 3 days before burying them assuming they didn’t ring for 3 days they were dead. That’s where saved by the bell originated from.
We had the best day with Brigitta. Her husband had come to pick her up and we stayed and chatted with them for a long time. Their daughter is living in Phoenix temporarily as a professor. Her husband is retired but worked as a global sales person for a large company here. When we said we were from Kentucky he said oh yes. It’s beautiful there. Lots of rolling hills, white fences and horses.
If we ever come back to Passau I’d love to track her down and hire her for the day to show us around again.
We had some free time so we walked along the Inn River which runs from Switzerland and meets the Danube.
Now it’s time to catch the bus back to the ship. Time for lunch!
More pics as we continued.
Our next stop is yet another Saint Stephen’s Cathedral but this one is obviously in Passau. There was a gothic style church on this site that was destroyed by a fire and then the Cathedral was built.
The frescos were painted in 1674. The Cathedral has five organs with over 17k pipes. One person can play all five at once but it takes a lot of skill to do so.
I also learned today that baroque churches don’t have stained glass windows because those would make the church dark. That explains why Melk Abbey didn’t have any.
We continued on through old town.
We arrived at the smallest church Saint Barbara. Brigitta opened the door slowly and there was a woman in there praying. She asked if we could take pics and she said yes. We were not allowed to go inside.
Saint Paul is the poorest church in town according to Brigitta. It’s built on top of a Roman Wall.
Our walk continues to our next Church.
This morning we woke up in Passau, Germany. Our walking tour is leaving at 9:15am so we pushed breakfast back to an 8am meeting time. We ate with Jane and Paul in Milo and Erwin’s section. The French toast was still bomb. Then it was time to catch the bus to town.
We had been pre-divided into separate groups. We lucked out with our randomly assigned tour guide.
We started off through the old town in the opposite direction of the other tour groups which made for mostly empty churches. Lucky us.
Passau has 50k resident and 50 Churches.
The bus left the Abbey a little before 4 and drove us up River to catch the boat in a small town. The had moved the boat while we were all visiting the Abbey.
We made our way back on the boat and headed to the lounge to blog, work, read, whatever your choices were. I was really hoping the oatmeal raisin cookies would return to the coffee station after being absent after day one. I was so sad to see they were still serving these “chocolate chip” ones but that didn’t stop me from eating one.
The plan for dinner is the new status quo. I go stalk the dinner doors while others listen to the port talk about tomorrow’s activities. Happy to report I’ve really got this down to a science. We were once again in Milo and Erwin’s section and Paul and Jane joined us.
I forgot to mention in my Melk Abbey post that Jane was pickpocketed at the Abbey earlier. She had a Kate Spade backpack on with a magnetic closure and someone grabbed her wallet without anyone noticing. Someone came up and returned her wallet later. She was lucky to get everything back minus the 100 euros she had. Just so crazy to think that could happen with so many Viking tourists together since we all basically recognize people at this point. I’m surprised no one noticed. But I digress.
I made the right decision by getting the apple tart. I had picked the chocolate cake for Greg because I wanted to try it and he didn’t care. It was disappointing.
After dinner it was time to head to the nightly activity which was a movie trivia night hosted by Gavin. I expected I’d be terrible but Gavin had promised to enact all movie quotes and give prizes that nobody wanted. How could we miss this?
As I entered the lounge I was greeted by Carey who had an oatmeal raisin cookie!! They were back! Normally there aren’t desserts out this late but maybe because of the trivia night they made an exception. I feel like I manifested this shit. I grabbed two to hoard for later.
We went through another set of locks and happened to be walking near a door on our way to the lounge and hear tons of birds. The amount of seagulls on the wall was crazy.
We did really well with a score of 27.5 out of 30 but did not win. After announcing the winners Gavin said he had one more thing for us and started belting out a song. We were all confused until he shared he’s been in theatre most of his life. He was a great singer.
Turns out the prize was one of his CDs he recorded years ago that no one bought. He assured the winners if they don’t have a CD player they make good coasters. Now I’m mad I didn’t win.
It was the most fun night. I’m getting into this cruise!
The Bakers Grand European Vacation 