Sunday, 11 June 2006
The train to Passau from Regensburg was an ICE (InterCity Express) train. It reputedly runs up to 300 km/h, and the first time to anything, including the ICE, is almost always filled with excitement.
I arrived in Passau by about 14:30, and had about 3 hours to tour the village, highly recommended by my German supervisor. The central town was a distance (about 1 kilometre) away from the train station, and a large square was under extensive construction, so that the traffic was inevitably a bit chaotic. But once I entered the town centre, everything regained its charm. Passau has a typical medieval core, like Regensburg or Munich. I don't think it is necessary to describe its cobbled streets, squares, and coffee shops in detail again. One thing, though, is that ice cream, at least when I visited, seemed to be quite popular in Passau. About one in ten passers-by was holding ice-cream, or something that resembled an ice-cream cone.
I entered many churches--there were extraordinarily many churches in Passau given its modest village size. But slowly I drifted towards the bank of the Danube River, and crossed a suspension bridge to the other side.
On the other side, it was possible to climb up some stairs (with great views of Passau), to reach a hilltop castle complex. I entered by its "back lane", so to speak, which was quite an evocative experience, since the walls, the turrets, and the trails were quite overgrown and seemed more authentic than some of the castles I have visited so far.
In the castle complex, there was a youth hostel, and further up, in the courtyard of the castle, a children's activity fair and a coffee shop. It was possible, at this point, to go even further up, until one reaches what seemed like the "Prospect Point" in Vancouver-- an excellent lookout over the red-roofed Passau and the Danube River. If one opts to climb up a tower, then a panaramic view of the castle complex--courtyard and entrance and all--sprung into sight.
Coming down from the castle, and crossing the suspension bridge, I continued to follow the Danube River downstream, until it converged with the Inn River and the Ilz River at the southernmost point of the town (indeed, the town was built like a peninsula, right by the Austrian border).
On my way back roughly along the Inn River, I made some further detours, exploring more churches, streets, and hidden courtyards. That was quite a lot for three hours, so I returned to the Passau train station quite tired. The only thing left now was just to sit back and watch the Bavarian landscape roll by as the train sped towards Munich ( transferring at Regensburg again).