October 12, 2015
The temperature was a chilly 3 C with a clear sunny sky.
There was frost on the Sun Deck.
We have another Viking longship, Shadi, berthed parallel
to us less than a meter from each other.
The Shadi passengers need to walk over the two Sun Decks then through the
Magni to disembark to shore.
The Passau satellite Internet connection is working fine.
Due to the switching of ships, we will be bussed (about a 90 minute drive) this
morning to Regensburg for the walking tour, lunch and free time, returning to
the bus by 3:30 to return to the ship in Passau. The original plan was to
cruise on the Main Danube canal in the morning then after lunch have the
Regensburg walking tour and stay moored until the evening.
After breakfast, we picked up our group assignment number
and guest pass cards as usual from reception, and there was an invitation to a
Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner in the Aquavit Terrace this evening at 7. There are about 20 Canadians on the ship.
We took the receivers for the Regensburg walking tour and
walked off the ship via the Sun Deck and down the gangplank to the waiting
buses. The buses left just after 9 a.m. The temperature was 6 C and crisply sunny, no
wind.
The distance back to Regensburg is 122 km. The bus driver
activated the front and midsection screens so that passengers could watch the
GPS map zoomed out to 50 km to watch our progress. They were not activated on
the way back.
We were on the main highway passing semi-trailer trucks,
which are restricted to 100 km per hour. There were many trucks that had two
trailers. Most of the drivers have GPS
screens on the dashboard. Besides German trucks, we saw license plates from
Turkey and Slovenia. Near Passau, the geography is rolling hills. The opposite side of the Danube River is
Austria. The river is the border in this area. There are solar panels on house roofs as well
as some small fields covered in solar panels. We saw a few wind turbines near
Regensburg. We encountered several kilometers of construction going to Regensburg.
The machine used to spread the asphalt was as wide as three lanes of traffic
and there were at least ten dump trucks waiting to unload the asphalt loads. We
arrived at the bus parking area just before 10:30 and many used the opportunity
to have a “WC” (water closet) stop. Our
guide, Jana, was from the Czech Republic but residing in Regensburg for 17
years. Her English was excellent, like all of our guides.
Regensburg is the oldest city on the Danube and one of
the best preserved medieval towns in Europe. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. We started the walk by turning a corner and seeing the towers of St.
Peter’s Cathedral in the distance and the old stone bridge, Germany’s oldest,
just a street away. The stone bridge is
undergoing reconstruction which started in 2009 and should be completed in
2017. It was built in the 12th
century. We paused in the middle section of the bridge to view the skyline of
the old city. There were many towers,
most from the many 13th- and
14th-century patrician houses.
Because it was a merchant town, to outdo and impress their competitors
and other merchants and visitors, the richest families had to have a high tower
as part of the house. Some of the merchants were inspired by Italian architecture.
In the 15th century, there were more than 60 tower houses. We passed
under the city’s arched gateway at the old city side of the stone bridge and
walked to the old salt warehouse, with its massive 17th century
floor beams. Salt was a valuable commodity 400 years ago. Then we stepped down to the waterfront and
viewed the 800 year old Sausage House where thousands of sausages are made
every day.
The first inhabitants were Roman soldiers; Legion camp of
600 was established in 30 AD. After their camp was attached and wiped out, in
70, Rome sent in 6,000 soldiers and established a command post which was
completed in 179. The area of the fort
was 24 hectares. It was abandoned after
350 years when the Roman Empire started to collapse. There are still portions of the original
Roman structures such as the 2nd gate, Porta Praetoria. A northern
tribe, ventured into the area and found the abandoned camp and buildings and
stayed. In 555 Regensburg became the bishop’s capital of Bavaria.
In 1272, a Romanesque style Catholic Cathedral burned and
was replaced by the current Catholic Cathedral which has a tower from the
former church incorporated into its structure.
The old tower was used as a donkey tower, for the crane to hoist stone
up to the higher levels of construction. The sides of the cathedral were mostly
completed in the next 200 years , but the city went bankrupt due to the seizure
of Constantinople by the Truks. The merchants could no longer get silk and
spices to trade with the rest of Europe, so the wealth dried up. The original building material was local
limestone which was free but there was no more to be quarried, so green
sandstone was substituted on the front, but the towers were incomplete and an
ordinary roof was built on each one. The stained glass windows date back to the
13th and 14th centuries. In the early 19th
century King Ludwig visited and provided money to complete the twin spires,
which are 350 feet high. Then we walked
to the square by St. Peter’s Cathedral, near the fountain and across from several
hotels. Jana explained some of the features
of the interior but a visit inside was not part of the tour, so we went back
later to find the statue of the smiling angel Gabriel opposite the Virgin Mary
statue that Jana mentioned. Then we
walked down several narrow streets and had close up looks at several of the
tower houses. We saw one that had a balcony which showed the influence of the
Italians. There was a congress held in
the 17th century in town and the Lutherans and Catholics decided to live
in harmony. Each city had its own system of measurements and Regensburg’s are
attached to a wall of their Ratsteller. There is a foot, a very generous size,
an arm’s from a man’s middle finger tip on the right to the middle finger tip
on the left hand and one in between measurement. In this square was one of many
stores selling traditional Bavarian women’s and men’s clothes. Hapsburg Emperor
Charles V and King of Spain visited in 1544, in ill health. His Austrian subjects
told the city to make him happy, so that he could be healthy again. Regensburgers found their prettiest girl, Barbara
Blomberg, the daughter of an opulent citizen of Regensburg, who gave him a
“kiss” and nine months later, her son, Don Juan of Austria, was born. He was
sent to be educated in Spain at age three. He later fought in a battle against
the Turks, at Lepanto as admiral of a fleet of 208 galleys and smaller ships capturing
Tunis in 1573. Later , in 1576, he was appointed governor-general of the
Netherlands, then ruled by Spain.
In the early 17th century, Johannes Kepler,
the first person to publish the laws of planetary motion, visited the city
several times and died there in 1630. We learned about Kepler in Denmark, where
Kepler was an assistant to the Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. Then Jana led us to the restaurant for our
noon lunch. Steps 3,119
We were served wine or lager beer while we waited for all
90 people to arrive. Once they were seated in the restaurant, we were served
chicken noodle & vegetable soup, roast pork with boiled small potatoes
& gravy and cooked carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Then for dessert we
had phyllo pastry stuffed with apple in a vanilla sauce.
We left and went exploring, first following the street that
hundreds of years ago was a small creek / open sewer to the
Schloss Thurn and Taxis, the residence of the Thurn and
Taxis family that was beside a Benedictine monastery, founded in 739,
At St. Emmeram’s Abbey took a picture of the tower and
looked around. When walked toward the
river and stopped at a department store and went up to the roof top café to
take pictures of the Regensburg skyline. Next we explored the interior of St.
Peter’s Cathedral, with its stained glass, beautiful altar, statue of the
smiling angel, Gabriel opposite the statue of the Virgin Mary plus the huge
pipes of the pipe organ. As we crossed the old stone bridge to return to the
buses, we detoured onto the island that splits the Danube River and took some
pictures of the restored part of the old bridge. The bus left on time and we were back to the
ship by 5, greeting by a sous chef with a tray of crème stuffed phyllo pastry
balls. We stopped at the coffee station
to make cappuccinos to take to the cabin.
As passengers gathered in the lounge for the formal
introduction of the department managers, glasses of champagne were passed out
for the toast to the crew. The ship’s captain is from Ukraine and knows three
languages and began working for Viking this year and is now making great
progress learning English. The daily briefing followed with Claus telling us
that around breakfast time the ship will be moving from its berth in the
industrial section of Passau into the Danube river and to the Viking berth
which right next to the old town of Passau and about Tuesday’s agenda. Thanksgiving
Dinner for Canadians was at 7 p.m. in the Aquavit Terrace. At our table, were Canadians from Kelowna, Calgary,
Spruce Grove, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebèc, and St. John, New Brunswick,
plus Claus, the program director and Rebekka, the hotel manager. The Thunder
Bay man gave each couple a polished amethyst, as a remembrance and several
others traded email address. For dinner,
as we entered the Aquavit Terrace, we saw a beautifully set long table with a
harvest theme and were handed either cranberry schnapps or a whiskey mixed
drink. These were used for toasts before
the breaded mushroom ball starter was served. As wine and beer were served, the
chef advised us that we would be ordering from the main menu, or we could have
turkey dinner including dressing and cranberry sauce, too, or just a little bit
of turkey then, the appetizer of Asparagus with quail egg, next for the entrée
was Blackened Red Snapper. During dinner three different guests made brief
thank you speeches and we had several group photos taken during the
dinner. The official one will be part of
the voyage CD that can be ordered at the end of the trip. Then for dessert, besides the layered phyllo
pastry and crème slice with berries from the menu, the pastry chef presented a
cake decorated with the Canadian flag and coffee or tea. Finally as an after dinner chaser, we were
all served an empty shot glass in which to pour a 39 ml bottle of Jägermeifter
(a German digestif made with 56 herbs and spices). Just before 9 our American dinner friends
entered the lounge and waved to us and we later sat with them for the
concert.
At 9, a trio of opera singers from Munich and Nüremburg
sang selections from Mozart’s The Magic
Flute and Verdi’s La Traviata followed by a sing along to two
songs from the Sound of Music. Then the pianist, Jersoy, played the keyboard
and his clarinet in the lounge, but his music was for easy listening not
dancing, so we went back to the cabin.
Final steps total = 11,157 about 10 km.
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