Rivercruise - Dürnstein, Melk, Ybbs and Passau

Tuesday 16 May 2023

Breakfast while moored at Dürnstein. We being the second boat, another joins us at the mooring side. I guess the population will quickly double for a few hours.

A walk through Dürnstein on my own. Kevin isn't feeling well and has a rest. I also looked for two caches, but was unsuccessful. It's dry and overcast, but not too cold to walk around in a cardigan... I also finally have access to my eSIM card. My phone still thought I was in Dubai, where I had no access to it. Realised this morning why I still had location problems and did a reset of my phone. It worked!

We also had the opportunity to visit the castle on top of the mountain, but since Kevin wanted to rest for a day and it involved climbing, I didn't feel like going. And that is the funny part of this day! It wasn't until much later that something triggered my memory and I searched my blog for my stay in Austria in 2018. Little did I know, or rather remember, that I had already been there. Just have a look at this page: Dürnstein and scroll down halfway. I saved myself a lot of climbing, although the temperature would have been a lot better this time. :-)

Ruine Dürnstein und Vogelbergsteig

Baroque Bell Tower of Dürnstein Abbey

Schloss Dürnstein

I didn't remember this souvenir shop either.
Just look at my blog post about Vienna again.

Insect hotel

French Monument

From Dürnstein we travelled via Melk to Ibbs (or Ybbs). At Melk there was the option to visit an abbey, but since Kevin hasn't been feeling well today we decided to stay on board all the way to Ybbs. The other people will be dropped off here by bus. The Donau waters can rise very high as can be seen from the markers on the house. We've been told that at some places the river was 9m in 2013. At the moment we are experiencing very fast flowing water and a rising as well, but not yet enough to stop us from going under the bridges.

high water markers

Wednesday 17 May 2023

We arrived in Linz overnight. Everyone is going off the ship as it is going into a dry dock for a few hours for some repair work. Kevin and I will be going on a tour to Salzburg. The buses are starting to line up to take us to the various destinations for the day. Miserable weather, so not looking forward to a day out....

Our first stop is at Mondsee.

Mondsee Basilika St. Michael, where part of the Sound of Music was filmed.

Bitterly cold and wet in Salzburg, but we have seen a lot of places to do with the Sound of Music.

Translation: the world looks a lot better
after a cup of coffee - welcome

A quick sighting of snow on the mountains in the distance.

We had a lovely cup of coffee with Apfelstrudel and vanilla sauce to warm us up. Now on the way back to Linz and the boat.

Back on the boat in Linz Kevin is recovering from the cold! 🙂 (actually, me too.....)

Thursday 18 May 2023

We're in Passau now, waiting on the verdict for the rest of the cruise. The river level is too high for some ships to pass under one particular bridge. We took on extra fuel and water yesterday to gain more depth. That interfered with on-board entertainment yesterday, but as dinner always finishes late we go to our room afterwards anyway. If we can't pass we will swap (identical) ships and will each be on our merry way again.

A brief walk along the river, waiting for more news, which we received at 10am. We will not go to Regensburg, although we were offered a bus tour today, which we declined, but will instead stay here at Passau overnight. Then tomorrow we will at some stage pack our bags and be transferred to our sistership in Nuremberg, where we will be allotted the same room. The only thing different will be our lovely staff who are looking after us so well and with so much enthusiasm. No big deal at all as we were advised by our travel agent that it could happen. You can't tame nature! 🙂 Off to another walk now. At least it's dry!

As most of the passengers were out today we went to the dining room for a sit-down Bavarian lunch. Delicious pork belly with crackling, lamb shank, sauerkraut and beer sauce for the main dish. Caramel ice cream and berry sorbet for dessert. Afterwards we much needed an afternoon walk through Passau. Visited this beautiful cathedral with apparently the biggest church organ in the world with 17,974 pipes and 233 registers. The church is executed in baroque. We're still taking it easy as Kevin is slowly getting over his cold.

And, as luck will have it, a virtual cache to add to my list of geocaches.

# 2490 - Größte Kirchenorgel der Welt, Virtual Reward 3.0 (Virtual Cache)