Europe summer of 2023 - fifth segment

 Continuing on down the Danube, we came to one of my favorite cities in Germany, Passau. Near the border of Austria, Passau is located at the confluence of the Inn, Danube and Ilz rivers. Notice in the first picture the color of the water; the darker color on the bottom is the Danube and the lighter color on the top is the Inn. Some believe the reason for the color difference is that the Danube has more traffic and keeps the water stirred up.

Perched high above the city is a fortress and observation tower. Notice all the decorative trim on the windows. Actually, that is not really trim but rather 3D paintings to make it look like trim and all the windows are not actually windows but artistic paintings to make it look like windows.  This was a common practice because windows and trim were expensive so to save money, it was painted on the building.  Some of the fake windows are painted to look like the windows are open.

A view from atop the fortress

Passau is also home to the onion domed St. Stephen cathedral which houses a pipe organ with just under 18,000 pipes. They have a daily musical organ presentation that we attended.

Next stop, Melk, Austria famous as the home of the Melk Abby. 

Continuing on in Austria

June 30, our anniversary day going to Vienna, Austria. A gift from Viking River Cruises along with a bottle of champaign. Bonnie's sister Connie, spread the word amongst the people with whom we became friends, that today was our anniversary. So, people were coming up to us all day long congratulating us. Connie told them we had a tradition of Bonnie wearing her original wedding dress so many of them told Bonnie they wanted to see her in it. So, she put it on, the keyboardist played the wedding march and we danced on the dance floor. It was really funny because several people wanted to take a picture with us.

Two people we befriended were Eddie and Bonnie Bond from Virginia. Eddie is quite an accomplished musician particularly on the fiddle and his wife Bonnie plays the base and sings. You can check him out on YouTube. I had asked them to sit with us for our anniversary dinner. They are a delightful couple.