Passau

I honestly can’t get over how beautiful the Bavarian landscape and the Bavarian towns and cities are. I think I said it before but I truly enjoy the train rides on this part of Germany. The landscape is filled with wide fields and hills colored in different shades of green, with heavily populated forests that always remind me of the Little Red Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow-White stories; with small and very quaint towns which are so fairy-tale like: so Heidi, so Hansel and Grethel, so all the stories from the Grim brothers. And then, as you start reaching the southern part of the state you begin to peek at the Alps and their still somewhat snow-covered mountain tops. It all looks like a postcard. That is why I love sharing the pictures of all the places I’ve visited in this region.

Pictures taken from the train

Last week for example I visited the town of Passau (population: 50,000) which is located east north east of Munich right on the border with Austria and very close to the border with the Czech Republic. On a regular basis the train takes about an hour and a half to two hours but right the same day that I went they had started construction on a section of the rails and the trip took close to 3 hours. We had to take a train, then a 40 minute ride with a bus to another train station to catch the second train that would take us to Passau. When I came here as a student exchange back in 1990 (parenthesis: WOW I can’t believe it has been 17 years since then) Passau was the closest town, from the small town where I was living, which had a train station. This is the city where I was picked up by my German parents, the city I would go to with the bus to catch a train when I wanted to take-off for the weekend, and the city where I was dropped to catch the train back to Frankfurt on the second to last day of that adventure. I lived in a very small town about 25 kilometers (aprox. 15 miles) from Passau. The name of the town: Freyung, population: 1,000. So as you can imagine I was really looking forward to visiting Passau and seeing how much it had (or hadn’t) changed and how much I remembered about it. Some things where just as I remembered them: the exit of the train station, the Holiday Inn right next to it, the castle on top of the mountain, St. Stephen’s cathedral and its pipe organ (the largest in the world) and the corner where the 3 rivers that cross Passau meet: the Danube, the Inn, and the Linz. Other parts of the city I’m not sure I visited back then or if I did I did not remember them. In any case this city is beautiful and it is worth visiting if you are just in the mood for strolling, chilling and having an ice cream while you enjoy the views

The Inn and the Danube -- View of Passau from top of the castle

We took a 45 minute cruise ship along the Danube and the Linz. The day was perfect for it: sunny, clear sky and not too hot. Perfect weather for the perfect pictures which by the way I hope do some justice to the place.

To the left of the hill on the backgrond is already Austria

The trip back home was a long one. This time around, due to the construction, we had to take 3 trains and a bus. And on top of that the last segment, a train from Landshut to Munich, was delayed for about 30 minutes. So much for the German punctuality: 4 hours after leaving Passau I arrived exhausted in Munich but with the sense of having accomplished one of the trips I was most looking forward to making while in Germany. The one that I’m looking forward the most?!?!?!? Going back to Freyung. I still don’t know when or how is going to take place but I sure do not want to leave Germany and the Bavarian region without visiting it!!!

In the meantime I’ll continue enjoying the sun, the beach and the summer in Ibiza. I arrived 3 days ago. I’ll tell you all about it in the next post.