August 2016

Passau was the last stop in Germany before reaching Austria on our river cruise. We did not know much about it before arriving there, but it was a vibrant city filled with interesting structures and stories as narrated by our tour guide. 12,000 of its 50,000 population happen to be students, and this makes the vibe of the city quite youthful.

The rivers of Danube, Inn, and Ilz converge in this city, thus, it is called the Dreiflüssestadt, the City of Three Rivers. The first story we heard had to do with the flooding that often descends upon the city. Most buildings near the river bank have a contraception that will be used to create a makeshift bridge so that people can go in and out of the building during a flood.

You can walk up to the upper part of the town in 10-15 minutes from the city hall area. This area has its own share of interesting buildings and squares with St. Stephens Cathedral in the center. We attended the 30-minute concert at the church played on the largest organ in Europe. The organ concerts are usually played at mid-day every day for 30 minutes from May to October, except on Sundays and holidays. There are also evening concerts on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. that last for 45-60 minutes.

Another famous place to visit is Veste Oberhaus fortress, but we skipped it because we were pretty much tired of castles and fortresses by this time. You can see this structure up on a hill as your boat enters the city.

We walked off the ship and walked to the town center, and then walked back to the ship at the end of the day. The upper part is a bit of a hike, but the whole trip was quite manageable on foot.

 

August 2016

We finally got to Vienna after all these years of traveling thanks to a river cruise. We spent two nights on the boat docked on the River Danube a bit northeast of the city center. The first day there, we were taken to a private concert hall for 75 minutes of music and dance, which was quite nice and a bit decadent. We enjoyed the concert, but we do not remember much about the details now. What we remember fondly is the city-sponsored bike sharing program that we took advantage of the second day.

Of all the bike share programs we’ve tried all around the world, this was the most generous and easiest to use. You can register online or at a bike station for 1 Euro(refundable). Then each ride is free up to an hour! This means you can use the bikes virtually for free all day as long as you either park or switch the bike every hour, which was not difficult to do since we wanted to stop and visit a site or take a break anyway. Vienna is very bike friendly, and bike lanes are clearly marked and well protected.

Of course we did join the tour to Schönbrunn Palace provided by the cruise company the next morning. The most impressive thing during this visit was the apple strudel we had at the cafe in the palace ground. As far as a palace goes, this was a rather moderate summer residence for the Royals.

We spent the afternoon tooling around on a bike visiting markets and the usual tourist attractions.  My take was that 1.5 days in Vienna was not quite enough, but it was possible to cover the major attractions during that time. We’d prefer to spend at least 3-4 days there to really feel the city, though.

August 2016

 

We had passed by Nuremberg on several different occasions, but we were never tempted to stop in because all we could think of were the Nuremberg Trials, which did not give happy impressions. Then I came across an article about the city that raved about the cultural history and the natural beauty of the place. In fact, the Nazis chose this city as their center of activities for these reasons, it said. Thus, we finally made a stop on our way to Munich from Regensburg in 2015.

It was a quick 30 minute drive, and we were able to park the car on the street near the center, then we just walked around. We read about this sausage place within the southeastern gate of the city wall, and the little sausages they had there were just so delicious! We wanted to sit there all day and eat them while drinking beer. There were many shops in the surrounding area of the wall, and I took a break from the sausage+beer long enough to look around. Eventually we headed back to the car and drove on.

Then a year later, our river cruise ship stopped in Nuremberg, a city of 500,000 people, for a day & bused us into the city. The first stop was the Nuremberg Castle at the northwest corner of the old town city wall.

The castle ground was extensive, but, still, walkable. You get the pretty nice view of the old town from here.

From the Castle, we slowly walked downward toward the center of town. This area contained some old houses including the house the famed painter Albrecht Dürer lived and worked in. The picture below shows the house and the area.

We continued walking for a few more minutes and reached the city hall.

We came to a big square where the most famous church in town, St. Sebald, stands. This Romanesque style church built in the 13th century has a musical clock with moving parts in the center of the building exterior.

We could not leave this town without trying the little sausages one more time, but we were hungry and still at least 15-20 minutes away from the restaurant that we liked the previous year. Not to worry! What claims to be THE oldest sausage restaurant in the world was around the corner. The sausages were a bit more expensive here, but they tasted pretty good. We learned from the local tour guide provided by the ship that there’s a perpetual sausage war going on between the cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg, each claiming to produce THE best sausage! Personally, it’s hard to tell the taste difference, but I liked the riverside location of the Regensburg’s Historic Sausage kitchen, and the Nuremberg’s quirky little place tucked away in the city wall would share the number one spot in my book. I do prefer these little bratwursts over bigger varieties of sausage,

After the lunch, we walked south following the main drag and reached another famous church, Lorenzkirche. The first time we were here, we came across the very first jukebox that played hymns, and we were looking forward to putting some coins in to hear some music. Sadly, the jukebox was not there any more.

The old town is divided into two sections, north and south, by this river.

History buffs might want to visit the rally ground for the Nazis and the Documentation Center to learn about the Nazis, and this is located south of the city wall. The courtroom for the Nuremberg Trials is located west of the city wall. We did not have time or energy to venture out to these places. We did manage to visit the Toy Museum near the city hall, though. Nuremberg has been a well known toy making city for hundreds of years. Who knew!