TRAVEL ... with travel editor David Bray
If you have a thing about organs, particularly big organs, Passau is the place. Castles, too, and rivers, works in glass, boat trips and good food and beer. Passau is in Germany, at the junction of three rivers, which is why it took us two goes to get there.
The first time, we had to stay on in Vienna (no great hardship) when serious floods made that part of the Danube out of bounds. But we make it the following year, riding a hydrofoil up the Danube from Budapest to Vienna, then a couple of hours by train.
They tell us you can see the different colours of the three rivers as they meet at the Altstadt, a little peninsula where the tiny Ilz comes in from the north, the sometimes turbulent Danube from the west and the Inn from the south. If you try really hard, this is perhaps so. Certainly it is a lovely spot. High above it is a great castle, Veste Oberhaus Been there since the 13th century, built for defence and also used by some of Napoleon's forces.
Inside is the Oberhausmuseum which gives you a pretty good idea of what life in a castle has been like through all those years. Small, dark rooms is a first impression, but there are plenty of interesting displays of arms, cooking and eating gear, clothes, and so on. You can catch a bus up to the castle and walk down, which is what we did, several times, because the views on the way down are quite spectacular.
There are several other decent museums, one of which we stayed in. Yep the Hotel Wilder Mann occupies part of a building which also holds 36 rooms testament to one wealthy man's obsession with glass. There are more than 30,000 pieces in 380 cases of Bohemian glasswork and crystal. Astonishing.
Free to guests in this pleasant, well-run hotel which over the years has a provided a bed for celebrities from Empress Elisabeth of Austria to Neil Armstrong. It's an easy walk up to the Dom St Stephen ,the big cathedral dating from the 14th century but seriously rebuilt after a big fire in 1662. It is home to what is claimed to be the world's largest church organ - 17,774 pipes. Sounds magnificent, and there are recitals most lunchtimes - three euros for 30 minutes,
We jostle our way in long with a herd of Americans from one of the long tourist boats that ply the Danube so purposefully in the season. The male Americans get restless after about two minutes. The rest of us, certainly we Aussies, revel in the wondrous sonorities.
A wet day sees us take a cruise down river which takes us through pleasant, green countryside and a few craggy gorges. We also do one of the short cruises that run several times a day to a bit of each of those three rivers.
Eating and drinking are typically good here, and we end one heavy Franconian meal being entertained by the cook who yodels enthusiastically (and well) and charms his multi-national audience, especially a couple of Germans and a charmer of a Russian woman who appears to have some connection with "the embassy"'.
This is the anniversary of the end of the war in Europe so Mr Pavarotti of the yodel brings out toasts in firewater and there are hugs all round. The spy lady gives us a postcard of the Pope.
