Passau: Where Three Rivers Meet
"In the city of Passau there reigned a bishop," as we are told in the Song of the Nibelungs, the great medieval German epic set to verse probably by a monk from Passau.
The bishop's name is Pilgrim, and he is depicted in Passau's Old City Hall with his niece Kremhild on her way to marry Etzel (alias Attila the Hun) in the fortress of Esztergom near Budapest. Just recently this epic of both Germanic and Nordic mythology was placed on the list of UNESCO World Memory Heritage. Thus, the greatest of poems follows the Danube, the second longest river in Europe after the Volga, and our splendid cruise.
Passau is also the site of the venerated tomb of Gisela in Cloister Niedernburg, the wife of Stephen, Hungary's first King and the Magyar monarch who embraced Christianity. His name was given to the great cathedrals of Passau, Vienna and Budapest.
Three aspects envelope Passau: episcopal majesty, Italian flair, and rivers. It has been called the Venice of Bavaria due to the confluence of three rivers here. Our lovely palace on the Danube, the River Cloud, docked at the point of confluence, where the brown Danube, the green Inn with its colder alpine water, and the black Ilz with its pearls and minerals meet to become the Danube. There one could see the distinct colors of the three rivers, although they are even more vivid from the Veste Oberhaus, the old Prince-Bishop's fortress towering above the city and the Danube.
Before reaching Passau, a dense morning fog had settled over the otherwise scenic Danube bends at the Schlögener Schlinge, so it proved to be a good time for lectures by Lucy Russell on Mozart's operas: What Cannot Be Spoken, Must Be Sung and by Ray Russell on Central Europe and the Multicultural Danube. The group interest in a multitude of topics gave rise to questions and discussions of considerable scope and length during the whole week’s cruise.
We docked in Passau just in time for the daily noontime organ recital in the Cathedral, performed on the world’s largest church organ from 1928 and 1978-81. Works by Bruhns, J.S. Bach, Walther, Dubois and the contemporary German composer Joachim Schreiber were rendered in vivacious and stylistically convincing interpretations by the organist Brigitte Fruth.
Sharon Grainger led glass aficionados to the famous Glass Museum with some 40,000 items on display, while Ines Bustamante took energetic guests on a steep walk up to the Veste Oberhaus.
Others enjoyed the historical tour with tales of the important salt trade which first made Passau prosperous. On the banks of the Inn River, we heard that the Habsburg leader Leopold I fled to Passau with his family during the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. Here he climbed up to the Mariahilfe pilgrimage church across the river and prayed for victory over his enemies. Indeed the Turks were subsequently defeated, and Leopold returned to Vienna in triumph.
Early on Passau became a Free Imperial City and Bishopric, and at one time its diocese extended to Austria and Hungary. We paused in the Prince Bishop's residence to see the splendid Baroque edifice adorned with a spiraling Rococo staircase, frescos and ornamental stucco. It was curious to note that several entrance doors to the palace had no steps, as the Bishop was enabled to step in directly from his carriage!
Our city walking tour ended at the Cathedral. Originally a Gothic church, only the apse of St. Stephen’s remained after the ravages of the great fire in1662. The rest of the church was constructed anew in grandiose Italian Baroque style as the largest Baroque cathedral north of the Alps. Quaint antique stores, medieval houses and classy shopping in the modern pedestrian zone caught our attention with many decorative details, including chocolate breasts in one window.
In the evening re-cap Sharon, Ray and Lucy spoke on chocolate, wurst, beer purity laws and amber. During yet another gourmet dinner aboard the River Cloud, we cruised to Vilshofen. The evening was capped by a touching presentation by Joseph Szep, 93, about his visit to his mother’s home village in Hungary, made vivid by Sharon’s photos.
