Germany Archives - Pacific Northwest Explorer

Passau, Germany

by Alan K. Lee

The Danube River cruise that my wife and I took in 2022 ended in Passau, Germany. If you’ve never heard of Passau, join the crowd. I certainly never had, and I didn’t have any expectations of it being more than just the place where we disembarked the Viking “longship” that we had been cruising the river on. But Passau was a pleasant surprise.

Passau is located in Lower Bavaria in the southeastern corner of Germany, on the Austrian border. It’s a small city with a population of about 50,000. It’s known as the “city of three rivers,” as the River Inn and the River Ilz both flow into the Danube in Passau.

The last day of our cruise was spent entirely in Passau. In the morning, we took a guided walking tour of Passau. The medieval center of Passau is full of cobblestone streets and narrow alleys, but it’s a small area constrained by the Danube and the River Inn. You don’t have to wander far to reach one of the rivers, and once you reach a riverbank, the views open up to the hills surrounding the town. And the hills provide great views of the city.

The River Inn and the hilltop Wallfahrtskirche Mariahilf

After lunch, my wife and I climbed the 300+ steps up to the Wallfahrtskirche Mariahilf, a baroque church south of the River Inn, where there is a great view of the city.

Later, my wife hiked up to Vestre Oberhaus, a 13^th century fortress overlooking the city on the north side of the Danube (while I took a nap in our stateroom).

We finished our day with a walk to the park at the end of the peninsula with two of the friends we made on the cruise.

Like most European cities, Passau has a long history, dating all the way back to the 2^nd century BC. But the city was almost completely destroyed in a fire in 1662 and most of the older structures in Passau are baroque style buildings dating to the late 17^th century.

The Dom St. Stephan, with its three green onion domes, is the most prominent building in Passau. The cathedral is noted for its huge pipe organ, one of the largest in the world. We didn’t get to experience the pipe organ, but the cathedral is magnificent.

Passau served as a relaxing and fitting end to a great week. We got a taste of some of the great central European cities like Budapest and Vienna. We also visited places like Bratislava that we would never have seen had we not taken the cruise. And we saw some magnificent scenery, visited a well-preserved medieval village in Czechia, and toured a 900-year-old monastery and many churches and cathedrals.

My wife and I have now done two river cruises in Europe, and I would recommend either a Rhine River or a Danube River cruise as a good introduction to Europe. (Several river cruise lines combine the two into a grand tour that takes you from Amsterdam to Budapest). There are disadvantages to river cruises, of course, mainly that you never stay in one place long enough to really get to know it. But a river cruise gives you at least a taste of many places in a short time. If you are interested in learning more, check out my River Cruising post and any of the posts on the cities of the Rhine and Danube that you can find links to by clicking on Beyond the Northwest on the main page of this blog.

Posted May 20, 2024

All photos © Alan K. Lee

Rhine River Cruise: Heidelberg to Strasbourg

The fourth full day of our Rhine River cruise took us to Heidelberg, Germany. Day five found us in Strasbourg, France.

After docking for the evening in Rudesheim (see my previous posts on Amsterdam and Kinderdijk, and Cologne and the Middle Rhine), our cruise ship sailed overnight to Manheim, Germany. After breakfast on board we ventured to Heidelberg by bus. First stop was Heidelberg Castle.

The road to the castle is steep and narrow and there are several hairpin turns that were definitely not built with tour busses in mind. It took a good bit of maneuvering and a bit of time, but the driver had obviously done this before and we made it up the hill without incident.

Heidelberg Castle overlooks the old city, and is largely in ruins. The first structure was built on the present site around 1300. Shortly after the first castle was built, a second was built higher up the mountainside. The second castle was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1537 and nothing remains of it today. The remaining lower castle was heavily damaged in the early 1600s during the Thirty Years War, and almost completely destroyed by the French in the late 1600s. A portion of it was restored in the late nineteenth century and the ruins of the rest of the castle were stabilized and remain in the condition they were in at the time.

Our tour guide was a graduate student working on his doctorate in history at Heidelberg University, so we got a wealth of local history during our tour, told in an entertaining and often humorous manner. The castle ruins are a treasure trove of photo opportunities, as well. I could easily have spent a full day, or more, at the castle, but had to move on with the group.

After touring the castle, we made the short trip back down to the old city. We opted for an abbreviated tour by our guide, giving us ample time to wander the city on our own. Like many of the old medieval centers in European cities, the historical center of Heidelberg is quaint, picturesque, and thoroughly charming.

We spent an hour or so exploring the old city, then stopped at a sidewalk cafe at one of the hotels for lunch. While there, another of the couples on the cruise joined us. Fran and Victor, from Santiago, Chile, were one of the few non-American couples on the cruise. Coincidentally, Victor, who is a surgeon, had been sent to Heidelberg some time previously by the university hospital where he practiced (they had some sort of reciprocal relationship with Heidelberg University), and had stayed in the same hotel at which we were dining.

While we were touring Hedielberg, our cruise ship had sailed upstream to Speyer, where we rejoined the ship. The historical center of Speyer was only a short walk from where our ship was docked, so we had plenty of time to explore it that evening.

Speyer has a long history, dating back to its founding by the Romans in 10 BC. The Speyer Cathedral, begun in 1030, was the site of the 1526 Diet of Speyer that temporarily suspended the Edict of Worms that had banned Martin Luther in 1521. In 1529 a second Diet of Speyer essentially reinstated the Edict of Worms. Supporters of Luther then issued a Letter of Protest, and henceforth became known as Protestants.

The Altpoertel (Old Gate), one of the other major sights in Speyer, was built in the 13th century. One of the 68 original towers of the old city’s wall, the Altpoertel is one of the largest medieval city gates and towers in Germany.

That night the ship took us to Kehl, Germany while we slept. There the Rhine forms the boundary between Germany and France, and the next morning we bused across the river to the city of Strasbourg, France . Neither my wife nor I had been to France before, so this was an interesting excursion for us.

Strasbourg today is home to the European Parliament and a number of other European Union institutions. In the past, it has been part of German territory, so its culture is a mix of French and German. In fact, it has changed hands between France and Germany four times in the last 150 years. Our tour guide’s grandparents lived under both French and German rule, and had to make the transition from one to the other three separate times. France and Germany have very different legal and political structures, as well as languages, so it must have been very difficult to adapt each time the city changed from one to the other.

The historic city center of Strasbourg, the Grand Ile, is an island in the Ill River, which flows through Strasbourg before joining the Rhine. The Grand Ile has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988. The Ile is full of magnificently preserved and very beautiful examples of medieval architecture, particularly the Strasbourg Cathedral, which was constructed between 1176 and 1439. Its 466 foot high north spire made the cathedral the tallest building in the world from 1647 until 1874. The cathedral is also noted for its massive (18 meter tall) and intricate astronomical clock, completed in 1843. The current clock replaced an earlier one built in the 16th century, the remains of which are preserved in the Museum of Decorative Arts.

We had a wonderful time wandering around Grand Ile on our own after the end of the organized tour, taking lots of photos, and having a leisurely lunch, dining outside at one of the many local cafes. After returning to the ship, we walked into the town of Kehl and did some further exploring.

From Kehl, the ship sailed that evening to Breisach, Germany. Our excursions on the following day took us to Freiburg, Germany and Colmar, France. Look for an upcoming post on those outings.

Posted by Alan K. Lee, April 12, 2019

All photos by and property of the author

Rhine River Cruise: Cologne and the Middle Rhine

The second and third days of our Rhine River cruise took us to Cologne, then the villages and castles of the Middle Rhine region. After leaving Kinderdijk (see my previous post) on the afternoon of our first full day of cruising, our “longship” navigated its way to the Rhine, and then upstream to Cologne overnight.

“Love locks”, Hohenzollern Bridge, Cologne

My wife and I took two guided tours on the second day of our cruise. In the morning our guide led a tour of the old historic city center. Normally that includes a tour of the cathedral, but it was Sunday, so tour groups were not allowed in. We had the afternoon to ourselves, though, so we were able to tour it independently later that day – a very impressive structure, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe.

We also spent a good bit of time that afternoon exploring the Museum Ludwig (modern art, including a large collection of Picasso’s), and the nearby Roman-Germanic Museum, which preserves a Roman villa from the third century B.C. that was unearthed during the construction of a bomb shelter in 1941. Both are adjacent to the cathedral. If you’re an art and history buff, those are two places you do not want to miss.

Cologne ( Koln) was founded by the Romans in the fist century A.D. (The Roman name for the city, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, was shortened and became Cologne to the French and Koln to the Germans.) The city was heavily bombed during World War II, and 95% of the central city was destroyed. Only the cathedral, city hall, and a few other buildings survived. A lot of the rebuilding was done in a style to match the surviving buildings, so much of what you see when you visit looks old and historic, but is in fact less than 70 years old.

Cologne’s city hall is built on the site of the ancient Roman Praetorium, which was the seat of government of the Roman province of Germania Inferior until 475 A.D. The Praetorium was destroyed in an earthquake in the late eighth century. Cologne municipal government was formed around 1100, and the original city hall building was constructed in the mid-12th century. The current structures date from as early as 1330.

Construction of the Cologne Cathedral began in 1248. In 1478 construction was halted and the cathedral remained unfinished for another 400 years. It wasn’t until 1880 that it was completed to the original medieval plan. The cathedral was damaged by a number of bombing raids in WWII, but remained standing, and repairs were completed in 1956.

Detail of the Cologne Cathedral exterior

Our second tour in Cologne was an optional pub crawl that evening, led by a local guide. In Cologne each pub has a working agreement with one of the local breweries that produce the local brew, called kolsch. Each pub serves only one brand of kolsch, so to sample a variety of different kolsches, we visited four pubs. Kolsch is served in small seven ounce straight-sided glasses. You never have to order a refill. An empty glass is considered the order and will be refilled without your asking. A coaster placed over the top of the glass is the signal that you do not want a refill. Needless to say, we had a great time, drank our fill of good beer, and the guide managed to get all of us back to the ship before it left that night.

Spay, Germany, viewed from Marksburg Castle

The next morning found us in Koblenz. After breakfast on board, most of us boarded a bus that took us to Marksburg Castle. It’s not the prettiest castle along the Rhine (in my opinion), but it is the most intact. It is the only castle that was never attacked, so you get a better peak at what castle life was like back in the middle ages. Many of its rooms display historically accurate recreations of how they looked and functioned in medieval times. It was all very interesting, but also very crowded.

Back on the ship, we spent the afternoon cruising the Middle Rhine Valley (sometimes called the Rhine Gorge), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here the Rhine flows through a narrow valley with picturesque villages along the shore and many castles high above the river on the ridges either side.

The cruise ships travel this section of the river during the day both because it is the most scenic part of the river and because it is difficult to navigate in places. The famous Lorelei Rock is on this section of the river.

Late that afternoon we docked in Rudesheim and spent the evening exploring on our own. Rudesheim is a small, picturesque town, like many that we passed earlier in the day. It was a pleasant end to a very nice day. By this point I was fully onboard with the idea of doing more river cruising in the future. Maybe the Danube next time, perhaps.

Our cruise continued with stops in Heidelberg, then Strasbourg and Colmar, France, and a tour of Freiberg, Germany before disembarking in Basel, Switzerland. Look for future posts on the remainder of our trip.

Posted by Alan K. Lee, 3/21/19

All photos by the author