Wrapping this all up

The last three days of the trip we spent it all in Germany and listening to the ship crew deal with the enormous amount of rain pouring into the Danube.  As the river continued to rise, we were at risk of not getting under some bridges. So as we planned to stop at Passau but were redirected to another city where they bussed us back to Passau.  The needed to get to just before the bridge that was in question if we could pass under it.  So while we were prancing about the town, the crew dismantled the top deck, removing all the chairs, tables and railings. More on that later.

So we got to Passau after a short bus trip and entered the town.  We joined another tour that day.  The area is the town of three rivers that all merge at this point.  They have a history of regular flooding and you can see how the town is built and how people live to prepare for their bouts of flooding.  We spent most of the time looking at St Stephan church during the tour.

 We did stop in a couple of other areas to see some art exhibits of art work of local artist, but the appeal of the art was sadly lost on me.

So, we left the tour as we figured out we wanted to see parts of the town they were not going to visit.  We walked down to point of town where all the rivers meet and took in the view.  After that we explored other parts including yet another coffee shop, which was excellent and headed back to the ship to get ready for our big adventure to see if we would get under the bridge.

It was close and the ship made it with about 10 cm to spare!  So, we sailed on towards Regensburg.  It was interesting sailing from that point on for the day.  We had a guest lecture on the history of Danube and what happened along the points we were sailing.  One interesting place in the middle of - what appeared to be nowhere was a large memorial.

After we ended up Regensburg by the next day, we decided to skip the tour and explored the city on our own.

 We basically just wandered around town all day.  They plan was for the ship to leave around 1:00 that day and end up Nuremberg, but when we got back to the ship, we were stuck because of the high waters, so we had the rest of the day to more exploring, so we did.

 So we walked into different shops, different churches and got lost several times and even watched a group training to river rescues.

 We all ended up having the big farewell dinner with some fancy treats and ending with a group picture with each alumni group.

  The appetizer and dessert.