Wadlstrumpf: Donausteig - Day 0

I have a bunch of photos of S looking a lot like Caspar David Friedrich's painting, Der Wanderer ueber dem Nebelmeer:

1818

2021

2022

There are more, but you get the idea.

It occurred to me that the mountains in Friedrich's painting were probably inspired by real mountains, perhaps embellished somewhat in the painting, and that maybe I could go hiking there just like Caspar David Friedrich did--which is how I learned about a multi-stage trail in the Elbsandsteingebirge--where we had already hiked briefly in 2012--called the Malerweg (Painter Trail). The Malerweg has a reputation as one of Germany's most beautiful trails.

So after I planned our hike to Sterzing, I planned a six-day Malerweg hike and tried to convince S to come along so I could add more photos of him to our collection of Wanderer-ueber-dem-Nebelmeer knock-offs, taken more or less at the source.

But S had other ideas--like a 5-day bicycling tour from Steinebach to Sterzing traversing mountains that are way higher than those we were planning to hike over.

Whatever. This here acrophobe determined to do the hike by herself.

Then I started looking into train schedules to get to my planned starting point in Pirna, and it turned out Pirna is about 7 hours away. You know I love me some Caspar David Friedrich paintings, but not enough to add two long solo days of there-and-back sitting-on-trains plus two extra nights in hotels for just six days of hiking.

And that's how I ended up hiking along the Danube river, from Passau to Linz. If I couldn't photograph my wanderer over a sea of clouds in the Elbsandsteingebirge, I could at least eat Linzer Torte in Linz. This would be a serious research trip, I myself would be the Wanderer, and it would only take ~3 hours to get to the starting point by train. As an added bonus, S agreed to join me for an overnight trip to Passau.

I planned a route that followed some of the north-side-of-the-Danube Donausteig trail and some of the south-side-of-the-Danube Donausteig. Once I started the hike, I made a few last-minute changes en route, because Burgruinen beckoned, and biting bugs did not. The end result looked something like this:

Day 0 - Exploring Passau

Our friend T from Durham visited us the last week of June. When she headed for the airport, we rode as far as the Munich Hauptbahnhof with her, then hopped onto a train to Passau. This required no reservations, thanks to this year's Deutschland Ticket, a 49-Euro updated version of last year's 9-Euro ticket. Because it's a little pricier, and because it's unfortunately complicated enough to obtain that it deters some travelers, the trains aren't as crowded this summer as last.

We arrived in Passau at 11:40am, with just enough time to zip over to the Stephansdom for a noontime organ demo recital. Passau's Catholic cathedral houses the largest Dom organ in Europe. Built by the organ company Eisenbarth in 1978-80 using parts from the Dom's 1923 Steinmeyer organ, with additional renovations in 1993, the organ has a whopping 17,974 pipes and 229 registers. Parts of the organ were out of commission for renovations, but the recital was nonethless the cleanest and most varied organ sound I've ever heard--no muddiness at all. We weren't sure whether the clarity came from the instrument itself, or from much of the massive building's walls being covered in plastic sheeting for the renovations. By way of comparison, the mighty Aeolian at Duke University has ~6,600 pipes.

Here, apparently, is how electricity is added to a cathedral that dates from the second half of the 17th century:

This section of ceiling is below the organ. Note the musical details in the arch:

After the recital, we found our hotel and dropped off our backpacks...

...and then meandered around Passau for the rest of the afternoon.

Stadtpfarrkirche St. Matthaeus

Passau lies at the intersection of three rivers: the Inn, the Danube, and the Ilz. We crossed the Inn...

...paused for some views near St. Gertraud (rebuilt 1815/16 following a fire in 1809)...

St. Gertraud, 1815/16

...and then hiked up the hill to the Baroque pilgrimage church Mariahilf. The pilgrimage route to the church is covered, and involves ramps...

...and 321 steps, and lots of votive offerings brought by grateful pilgrims.

A plaque outside the church states that as a child, W.A. Mozart prayed there. (Sorry, you thought I was going to type "played there," didn't you?)

The altar features a 17th-c. copy of a 16th-c. painting by Lukas Cranach the Elder. Deets here. We had no idea what we were looking at at the time, since we were mainly there for the covered stairs and the view.

Here's the exit from the staircase. The Jugendstil sign says "Pilgrimage Steps, since 1627." In looking for online info about these steps, I learned there's a website called Treppenfinder (Stairs Finder) that helps readers find staircases around Europe in the interest of finding places for good stair-climbing workouts.

Sigh.

Hiking back down from Mariahilf, we could see the intersection of the green water of the Inn and the darker water of the Danube.

Then it was back across the Inn...

...and across the Danube for another ascent and more views. If you couldn't tell from all the Viking Cruise ads on PBS, the Danube hosts zillions of big tourist boats. (We didn't actually see any labeled Viking, but we did see numerous other companies. I guess the fact that I'm only mentioning Viking is a testament to successful advertising.)

We climbed up to the 13th-century fortress Veste Oberhaus, arriving just as it closed for the day.

Then back down to Passau.

The Passauer Toelpel (the Passau Dope) dates from the late 14th or early 15th century; the head fell off in 1662 either in a city fire or during a musket accident during Fronleichnam.