Once again today is a two port day. Too far to walk however as Passau to Linz is 90 km! Several people have gone on coach tours and they will return to the boat later.
Instead we have an early call for a city tour, which turns out to be just a Cathedral tour - and it's worth the effort - plus free time to do our own thing, which gave us enough opportunity to cover all the important (according to our guide book) bits of Passau, and still find time to buy a new SD card as I managed to break one last night.
There are a lot of churches here and we step into a few ... whilst the Cathedral is amazing, with the largest organ in Europe, it's the Jesuit Church of St Michael which wins the day as the organist was practicing and it was simply exquisite!
We saw a wedding outside the Old Rathaus (now a pub) and several public spaces preparing for a bier festival (it seems every weekend is a good reason for one) as well as many craft tied up on the riverside, from other river boats like us (four of them) to more energetic variants that cycle from one place to the other during the day, and smaller local cruisers.
Returning for a 10:30 all-aboard we set off down the Danube for Linz in order to pick up those who have gone on a tour to Saltzburg or Cesky Krumlov. For a few miles the Danube is the border so we have Germany on our left and Austria on our right, until at lunchtime we eventually go inside the border and remain in Austria, our home for the next few days.
After our long walk yesterday we've elected to have a lazy day. It turns out we are the talk of the boat, everywhere we turn people want to ask questions about our walk yesterday - that we 'jumped ship' was widely seen and now they all want to know how far, if we cheated, if we can still walk, if we're sore ... it goes on and on, but they mean well and it's such an improvement on one week ago when most people thought we were odd - now they know! Weather is mixed so it's jumpers on, jumpers off, repeat, repeat! And have a Chardonnay or G&T, of course!
We had hope to arrive in Linz before 17:00, and would have gone for a pre-dinner wander, but we had to wait ages for a slot in the only lock this afternoon, so it's not likely. As I'm writing this in real time, you may found out later.
Turns out we didn’t arrive until 17:30, so we didn’t go out beforehand, which is a good job as those who did got a proper soaking - will we go out after dinner instead?
The evening’s dinner is advertising (amongst other things) “Supreme from the duck” which it qualifies as sliced breast and leg - hmm lets see about that eh? Whilst we were berthed alongside a Scenic boat earlier, I asked a couple about their food quality (to explain Scenic own Emerald and the own brand is supposed to be a cut above the Emerald level) however they were equally non-plussed with their situation. Hardly scientific I know, but one does wonder what the base level is - clearly not (certain) cruise ship standard anyway!!
The quality of the duck wasn’t ideal - the leg was dry and (perhaps) had been left on the counters too long, the breast meat was fine but I’d not be describing it as pink and juicy, just off-pink. And don't mention the gnocchi! Sadly this is all too often my assment of dinner onboard - the description sounds great, the reality is always close but less than ideal - I could (can) do much better.
Comments
Post a Comment