More heritage: the Wachau Valley

On the Tuesday morning of our cruise, we were treated to what Viking calls "scenic sailing," as we traversed this linear World Heritage Site. Extending from Melk, Austria (home of the famous abbey that we just saw from the river) to Krems (home of a not-so-famous-but-still-quite-scenic abbey that we did get to tour) this stretch of the Danube is quite lovely and we were happy to have reasonably good weather to enjoy it.

Because, of course, we spent the whole stretch up on the sundeck and were treated to loads of gorgeous medieval scenery, spiced with fall color and helpful narration from Daniel, our knowledgeable program director.

We did get glimpses of the spectacular abbey at Melk, first from a distance as we entered the lock at Schleuse Melk...

...then from a good bit closer as we sailed past the village...

After this, it was just perfectly photogenic medieval town after perfectly photogenic medieval town, punctuated by scenic hillsides covered with the region's renowned vines and apricot orchards, and only an occasional short stretch of forest and cliff. It's not surprising that most of this area is cultivated and settled, since, as Wikipedia and UNESCO tell us, it's been under continuous human occupation since prehistoric times.

It was fun looking at my pictures and figuring out which town and which castle is which. With the combined help of Google maps and images, as well as the time-stamps on my photos, I think I was able to match everything up. So let me take you on an abbreviated, but hopefully still enjoyable, cruise through the Wachau.

---

First up, Aggsbach. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the Venus of Willendorf reproduction referred to in Wikipedia from the boat. But isn't this an impressive structure?

There was still a little morning fog in evidence at the beginning of the Wachau, but just enough to make for a nicely mysterious accent...

This is a good example of the between-towns scenery on offer; gorgeous, no?

The next town, Spitz, is one of the largest we passed; Wikipedia lists its 2017 population as all of 1,627!

In addition to this charming waterfront, it sports a really cool castle:

Just as we were passing Spitz, we saw a Viking sister ship, Ve, headed upstream and back to Nürnberg, its passengers experiencing the Wachau in reverse:

Next up, Wösendorf, which has this handsome church, but doesn't have its own Wikipedia page...

Its neighbor, Weissenkirchen (which means "white church") does, but it's so skimpy I prefer to link to this Austrian tourism site for information on it. The picture at the top of this post is of Weissenkirchen, with its eponymous church and backdrop of lovely hills.

Across the river from this village is the even smaller one of St. Lorenz. Its claim to fame is this whimsical sculpture, definitely not medieval, which shows that whatever the Wachau has for a Historical & Design Review Commission isn't so stuffy and purist that they don't allow a little humor in their scenery. 

Plus, it is something of a tourist attraction in its own right, as  you can see from the pictures accompanying this tongue-in-cheek article. And look for it on Google maps; you can see the Nose on satellite view!

After die Nase, the Danube makes a very sharp bend to the southeast, and one of the most picturesque, and historically interesting, towns comes into view. This is Dürnstein, where no less personage than Richard the Lionheart spent time in the late 12th century, although not as a tourist (read a bit about this diplomatic incident in the ever-helpful Wikipedia).

It's a little hard to see against the cliffs of the same color, but there is a statue here, just upstream from the town and the castle, commemorating this bit of Crusades history...

Dürnstein is really lovely, and as a bonus in this shot you can see the castle where Richard was imprisoned up on the hill above...

The lovely blue tower at the Dürnstein Stiftskirche deserves a closer look...

Next we saw another picturesque, but Wikipedia-less village, Unterloiben...

And before the bustling metropolis of Krems, a small piece of untamed wildness...

Then it was Krems, which with over 20,000 inhabitants, seemed like a big city after all the Wachau villages...

Here our super-skillful captain docked us neatly next to another sister ship, Gullveig. Viking's longship crews have a lot of practice doing this sort of thing, but it's still pretty impressive how they're able to maneuver these very long, rather boxy, boats into such tight quarters with nary a bump.

In one or two of our docking locations, there were two, or even three, ships docked side by side. In order to get to shore, you have to walk through the other boats' lobbies. (They aren't all Viking boats, either, and we all agreed that at least as far as decor goes, Viking has the competition beat hands down.)

What's really amazing is that sometimes when you leave your boat, it's, say, the second one in line out from the dock, and then when you return from your tour, it's third! Which means they have to un-dock and re-dock more than once at some of these locations, where riverboat touristing is really popular. Pretty impressive seamanship!

At Krems we disembarked and boarded buses for our tour of the Göttweig Abbey nearby, and I'll tell you all about that next time.

A crystalline gem

What a delightful little museum this is! [Well, it's not all that little, considering the number of photos I want to share.]

I'm talking about the Passau Glass Museum, which I opted to visit on my free time in Passau, after the organ concert. It was such fun! So much gorgeous glassware, room after room after room of it. So many rooms we really had no idea how much further we had to go at any point. Fortunately, we were able to finish up, and see it all (although some of the later rooms got short shrift) without being late getting back to the boat.

As a bonus, the museum also offers exhibits of other quirky stuff, and in such quantities, that it made me think of it as a sort of mini-V&A. Quite a compliment, since that was one of my favorite London museums. Who knew I'd find a little duplicate of that delightful place in this tiny town along the Danube?!

example of V&A-level quirkiness: a room full of buttons!

I hope you don't get overwhelmed by the number of pix in this post; it was difficult to stop snapping in the museum, and it was almost as hard to pick out a reasonable number to show you. I'll start with some handsome pieces that commemorate places I've actually been...

Brandenburger Tor, which I saw in 2008 in Berlin
Tor means "gate," but I'm not sure about the dialect in which it's spelled Thor

der Dom zu Regensburg, which we'd just seen the day before

No matter what color or type of glass you prefer, there's plenty of it on offer here. Green and classic or green and art deco...

...red, exquisitely cut decanters...

...Silberglas...

...or blue...

...classy...

...riotously baroque...

...or amusingly modern...

...it's all here. (Or, if they've left any out, it can't be worth seeing!)

We even got a little preview of one of history's most recognizable (at least in this part of the world) celebrities, Sissi, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary. It's not too surprising, since Passau is right on the border with Austria and before we were finished with dinner that evening we had crossed over into the second country of our cruise.

The first, large gallery of the museum (which we foolishly thought was the whole thing...joke's on us!) is populated by dozens of these rather creepy Sissi manikins, all wearing items from her famously vast wardrobe. Not sure what it has to do with glass, but as we found out later, anything Sissi is ok to be displayed, anywhere. 

More about Sissi in a few posts, when we arrive at her major stomping grounds, Vienna. It's just down the river!

museum window looking out at the Danube

A heavenly audio-visual interlude

This lovely building is the Dom St. Stephan (or St. Stephen's Cathedral) in Passau, and it has a distinction among the [not much of an exaggeration] thousands of churches we visited on our super-trip.

We weren't just limited to visual delights in exploring this church; there were aural treats here, too, courtesy of Viking. An organ concert, played on this amazing instrument, was part of our Passau city tour...

This picture doesn't even show all of the pipes, and if you think it's kinda big, you're right! I've seen it described as both the largest and the second-largest pipe organ in the world. But whichever is right, it's big, and it sounds wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed the concert, which also allowed us plenty of time to snap lots of pictures of the church's fabulously baroque interior...

Isn't that ceiling amazing?! 

Here's a shot that can give you an idea of the scale of the place. You're right if you think this voluminous interior provides wonderful organ acoustics!

I couldn't stop taking pix of the ceiling and its companion aisles and details...

...not to mention the centerpiece dome, over the altar, which you can see a little of in the shot just above. Here's a more direct look at it...

I don't want to slight the Dom's handsome exterior, although it is hard to tear oneself away from all that baroque splendor inside.

Details outside were interesting, too, like this inscription in memory of Passau's World War I dead...

The church is just a lovely addition to the "skyline" of this lovely town...

approaching the Dom down one of Passau's cute alleys

view from across the river on Henry's expedition

I'll finish up with Passau next time, with a look inside a fascinating and quirky museum. It's where I went while Henry was climbing the heights on either side of the town. I'm glad he took those hikes, which provided some wonderful views, but I'm also glad I opted for the museum. You'll see why next time.

Passin' 'round Passau

the Vesta Oberhaus, overlooking Passau

Last time, I situated the lovely little town of Passau for you in its scenic (but sometimes precarious) position at the confluence of the Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers. Now I want to show you around the town away from the waters.

As usual, we were given a great introductory tour by an exceptional local guide. This time it was Alex and he was not only knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but quite funny, too. Here he is showing us where he went to high school, and sharing some stories from his time butting heads with the Jesuits...

note the ever-present Viking lollipop

The buildings in Passau are just so pretty, with great decorative touches. Here's a couple...

And of course there are those towers...

But the smaller decorative details, naturally, are worth noticing, too...

Alex told us that this line of painted cobblestones, fittingly, leads one to an arts district...

The river banks that enclose Passau's Ecke are steep, and that makes for nice combinations of natural and man-made scenic shots...

These banks also allow for spectacular views of the city, like the ones I showed you last time. Some of those were taken by Henry after his climb up to the Veste Oberhaus that you see at the top of this post. And some were taken after his climb up the enclosed path to the Mariahilf (literally, "Maria-help") church on the other side of the Inn.

I've drawn a red box around the sheltered stairway. He took both of these climbs (and, yes, we were a little worried about his getting left behind since Tor was shoving off for our next destination before dinner! but he made it back in time, and avoided Viking chastisement) while I was exploring a less strenuous Passau attraction, which I'll tell you about soon.

While you wait, why not have a local brew?!

Passau an der Donau, etc.

We arrived at this lovely little town around breakfast-time on Monday, and although we spent less time here than at any other stop, it was one of our favorite places. And I took enough pictures for four posts anyway!

Our docking location was perhaps the best of the whole cruise (except for Budapest, which will be finishing up my Europe2017* posts in a few weeks)...

It was not only very close to the sightseeing highlights to be shown on our tour, but also next to a nice little park, named for the town's most distinctive physical feature. 

The park is at the Dreiflüsseeck, or "Three Rivers Corner," the tip at the confluence of the Danube, the Inn (which gives Innsbruck, Austria its name, quite a bit upstream, and the Ilz). Our guide (who was also one of the best of a very stellar group) explained not only the rivers' traditional colors (blue, of course, for the Danube, green for the Inn, and black for the Ilz) but also made sure we knew the German genders for each. Which I appreciated learning, although, as he remarked, it doesn't really make any sense. (In case you want to know, it's die Donau, die Ilz (both feminine) and der Inn (masculine). Don't you just love inexplicable language quirks?!)

We weren't the only boat on the river(s), either; if my memory serves, this guy was coming down the Inn toward the confluence. Had he come all the way from the Alps?

To begin our tour, we crossed the park and walked just a little ways up the Inn riverbank. This striking medieval landmark gave us a good foretaste of sights to come...

With all this water around all the time, it wasn't surprising to learn that Passau was particularly in the bullseye during the massive 2013 Danube flood. There's an amazing picture of the area near our dock in this contemporary news article.

Our guide, Alex, showed us this record of high-water marks which demonstrates that 2013 wasn't completely an anomaly, but it's almost at the top of the chart:

he wasn't really this shy; you'll see more of him in the next post

On our way back to the boat for a lunch to fortify us for afternoon explorations, I snapped this cute model of the city and its landmarks...

that's our stately Tor in the background

Henry ventured the furthest afield in the afternoon, and was able to get the spectacular shot at the top of the post, as well as this one, both from across the Danube...

Next time I'll show you more of this wonderful town, from closer vantage points.

---

*I (rather belatedly) realized that I wanted a way to easily peruse all of the posts from our 2017 super-trip, and so have gone back and retroactively added a Europe2017 label to all of my posts, and will be sticking that tag on subsequent ones. Should you ever want to see them all at once (including Wordless Wednesday posts), just click on this label in the list on the right.