Passau
The Dreiflusstadt, Where The Inn And The Ilz Meet The Danube And The Three Waters Stay Visibly Different Colours For A Stretch. Italian Built Baroque Old Town, One Of The Largest Church Organs In The World In St Stephen'S, And The Start Or End Point Of Most Danube Cruises And Of The Danube Cycle Path · Passau, Bavaria
Passau sits on a narrow spit where the Inn and the little black Ilz meet the Danube, and for a stretch below the point the three waters stay visibly different colours - green, blue-grey and brown. Italian architects rebuilt the town in baroque after fires in the seventeenth century, which is why a Bavarian border town looks like a small Salzburg, all pastel facades, oval squares and a green-domed cathedral above the roofline. St Stephen's holds one of the largest church organs in the world, played most days at midday in season to a full nave. The old town is small enough to walk in an afternoon and layered enough to keep you longer: a glass museum of some thirty thousand pieces, high water marks on the walls that reach well above head height, and the Veste Oberhaus fortress on the ridge opposite with the best view of the confluence. Nearly every Danube cruise and the Danube cycle path start or end here, so the town is busier with people passing through than with people staying - which is an argument for staying.
The old town on the spit between the Danube and the Inn, below the Veste Oberhaus, Lower Bavaria, Passau, Bavaria, Germany
The old town is open ground at any hour. St Stephen's keeps daily visiting hours around services and normally charges a small admission for the midday organ recital, which runs in season rather than all year and may not be given on Sundays - confirm the season and the day rather than turning up at noon in February. The glass museum and the diocesan museum keep standard museum hours with a weekly closing day in winter. The Veste Oberhaus museum is seasonal, usually closed in the deep winter months, though the ridge path and the viewpoint stay walkable year round for nothing. Boats to the confluence and the day cruises downstream run mainly from spring to autumn from the Danube quay. Trains from Munich, Nuremberg and Vienna all stop here, and the station is a flat ten-minute walk from the cathedral.