Passau

Unlike Nürnburg, it was bright and sunny as we left the train station heading in the direction of Passau. Each time I pass through the Bavarian countryside, I’m struck by the little towns, all clustered around their own beautiful little churches.

Upon arriving in Passau, we took a city tour (auf Deutsch natürlich!) and visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral, took a detour for some dönner, caught up to our group just in time to walk along the Danube to the point where it merges with the two other rivers.

After our tour we hiked up the outcropping to the old fortress. We enjoyed the local beer brewed in the old monastery while soaking in the view of the old town sprawling out below us. When a group of us Americans get together we have the tendency to default back to English, but we made a conscious effort to stick to German and despite some initial discomfort we really pushed ourselves that day.

As we were finishing lunch we looked at our watches and realized that the rest of our ILC group had met up to go to the monastery on the opposite side of town about six minutes before we realized the time, so we decided to do a more self guided tour. The city of Passau sits at the delta of three rives (the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz) in the valley between two big hills. We had eaten lunch at the top of one hill and afterwards slowly made our way down the hill, back across the Danube, and through the narrow streets of Passau, making more than one wrong turn until we found our way across the Inn to the opposite hill.

We climbed the traditional pilgrimage site steps to reach the Mariahilf Church where we found a spectacular panoramic view of the city and the fortress where we’d eaten lunch. It was kind of crazy how different the city looked from each of the hills.

Here we took some time just to sit and watch the cars and people going by below us. The church bells rang as the service let out and we stepped inside briefly to peek into the beautiful church.

I love the feeling you get when you step into a church after a worship service. The air in the room is charged with the electricity of worship and I think you can really feel the belief of everyone who’s just left.

After our little tour we walked back towards the bus station and headed back towards Regensburg. A game of Cards Against Humanities broke out on the train ride back and the inevitable hilarity that always ensues had us crying from laughing.

Thank you Passau for the 35,000 steps and my favorite day trip so far.