Friday 15th September
Overnight the overcast skies and drizzly conditions have completely disappeared, bright sunshine replaces the dawn light. We are docked for a “technical” stop to allow the crew to make some preparations for the day as the night shift retires. A group of energetic bike riders are disembarking for a three hour ride along the Donau/Danube canal that runs parallel to the Donau/Danube river. After breakfast we set sail, metaphorically speaking due east directly into the bright sun low in the sky.
If we thought the towns we had passed through so far where old, Regensberg is even older dating back to 90AD when the Romans built a fort here. Part of the fort entrance still remaining today. Situated at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers with a population of 140,000 and 1500 heritage listed buildings that mark the passage of time from the roman era to today. No doubt the latter factors contributing to the town’s distinction of gaining World heritage status in 2014. Our tour today consist of a city walking tour that starts in the early afternoon, optional coach tours and tours of the local BMW factory are also available. The morning is spent relaxing in the lounge as we float serenely along now northeast towards our destination. We travel on through the rich green Donau river valley, occasionally passing through small and medium riverside towns, always with their red terracotta roofed houses and church steeples new or old. Sometimes we spot typical Bavarian alpine style cuckoo clock houses perched on a hillside. The landscape continually changes, forest then white chalky cliff outcrops, to farmland and back to forest. The sky too is changing, out on deck the wind quickly chills you, the sun only making a sporadic appearance. When it does the reflections off the river make great photographic mirror images. Cruising the river is a process that slows you down, relax go with the flow, you can’t hurry our passage as we wait our turn for each lock that gradually lowers us down to the next level below.
Soon enough we reach Regensberg and tie up there, not sailing again until 10.30pm tonight.
On board lunches are buffet style with a huge variety of food that is freshly cooked from roast meats to a toasted sandwich. Today though we have decided to stay in town after our tour and find a restaurant for an early dinner. There is always fresh fruit in our room, cookies and chocolates too, but we stay with some fruit, then meet our guides in the foyer for the tour. The cloud cover has returned, our walk is a chilly one, thankfully once away from the river the wind dies down. Once with our guide we walk along the river to the bridge that fords the Regen river, built in 1135, a stone bridge that has 16 arches and became the only bridge to cross the river for 800 years. Unfortunately the bridge is undergoing renovation work so half of the structure is covered in protective material. Then we move into the city itself a combination of medieval and modern, colourfully painted buildings line small alley ways that lead to one plaza after another, modern shops fill the lower floors while apartments take up the upper ones. The buildings are large some five stories high, quite often built as a tower complete with battlements.
Each plaza has its own church the main one here is St. Peter’s a gothic style cathedral built over a period from 1275 to 1634, if we have learned one thing on this trip it is that it takes a long time to build a church.
The overall impression is of a very alive modern city with a real historical feel. Cobbled stone streets add to the charm, restaurants and cafes are on every corner, we spot a nice looking pizza place to return to later. Our tour guide takes us to the site of the remains of the roman fort, then on to the home of Oskar Schindler of Shindler’s list fame, he lived here for one year, how many other houses have the same plaque with the words “Oskar Schindler Lived Here” we wonder. Finally we are left to our own devices and we can wander at will to explore the city. We take our own walking tour just browsing at shops and taking in the surrounding architecture, huge steep roofed buildings seem to typify the Bavarian style, along with the church spires and domes.
We cross the ancient stone bridge, where a woman is playing the harp, producing golden notes that are wafting in the breeze before being blown down stream. We buy our first street music CD, a practice that has become a habit over the years when ever we hear a street musician we like, playing this at home will transport us back to this scene time and time again. Looking over the side of the bridge firstly upstream we can see the river calmly flows into the bridges boat shaped abutments below then on the down side the river seems to speed up, churning and swirling around in spiralling eddies, creating whirlpools that spin out of control before settling down and continuing on their way downstream.
Return into the centre of town really just a few steps away under a great arch, we find our way back to the Italian restaurant spotted earlier.
At around 5.30pm we beat the dinner crowd, but once we are seated patrons start to pour in. We decide on pizza, we haven’t had pizza since Philadelphia, wow! that now seems a decade ago. The ships food is good, but they don’t do pizza. Pizza and a salad of beetroot, goats cheese, lettuce and apples it is, German style and a glass of chianti served in a tumbler. We encounter no language problems, the servers all speak English and they have English menus. Our pizza is huge we can easily share it, and the salad so we relax and enjoy. Well satisfied we saunter back towards the river only a few minutes away, then turn towards the ships docking point further along the river. During the afternoon the sun did came out warming us just a little bit but down by the river the chill is now returning. Dinner cruises obviously popular along this part of the river, two large impressive looking show boats moored along the dock are beginning to fill with guests. Another boat has a brass quartet aboard, they are sitting on the top open deck playing a german tune in true Bavarian style.
Walking on a little further we return to where the River Duchess is moored, just before darkness falls, thankful of a sunny day out, tomorrow in Passau we may not be as lucky.