A Journal, with Pictures

We board our ship at the small Ger­man vil­lage of Vil­shofen. The AMA­Sono­ta is an amaz­ing new ship and we are set­tled into our spa­cious cab­in instant­ly. We gath­er and are briefed on the trip, then we are off to our first event which is a local “Octo­ber­fest” in August that is being held in the Vil­lage. We enjoy a stien of beer and see the lass­es serv­ing 10 huge stiens at a time while we lis­ten to the Omp Pa Pa band. We then are back to the ship for the first of our many great meals aboard. We explore the vil­lage of Vil­shofen the next mor­ing then we set sail for Passau.

We dock next to the city cen­ter in Pas­sau. Over­look­ing the city is the impos­ing a acient Veste Ober­haus fortress. The old part of the city sits on a penin­su­la formed by the con­flu­ence of the Danube, Inn, and the Liz rivers. Pas­sau was the largest bish­opric in the Holy Roman Empire and the lega­cy con­tin­ues today with over 52 church­es in town with the most impos­ing being St. Stephens Cathe­dral, which con­tains the world’s largest pipe organ.