Leaving Passau

Finally, the main event. A boat/bike tour on the Danube. Long talked about. Now, at last, delivered on, not least thanks to C's dedicated internet searching which found this holiday on an Austrian website for £500 less than it was selling on the Exodus website. It made it a much more palatable choice!

We left Passau under grey skies this evening, but for most of the day it was sunny and oppressively hot. We wandered the streets again for a while this morning, and then had an eiskafé in one of the central squares, before going to the daily organ concert in the Cathedral. It was great. A vivid and memorable rendering of the Bach Toccata and Fugue, making full use of the varied sounds of the five organs that make up the cathedral organ (see extra).

Afterwards, we found somewhere nice for a light lunch (and a beer, of course), before we wandered back to the hotel doing a bit of shopping on the way. Mr A bought me a very nice linen dress. There wasn't much time then to wait until our taxi to the boat, and since we arrived on board everything has been taken care of. We know where we are cycling, and what the excursions are. And I've just remembered that R and S are now back in Vienna, and so I've been in touch with them hoping we can meet up. It seems likely to work, later in the week. That will be an additional pleasure.

Dinner was more than pleasant. We have a table to ourselves, but the others have all been very outgoing and chatty getting to know other members of the international group on here (no one else from the UK!). As dinner came to an end, we reached our first lock, just before we moored for the night. We went on deck to watch the lock "action" (a bit bigger than the Five Rise...) but the rain came on, so it wasn't really an option to go for a walk after we'd docked in Engelhartszell.

Logging on to do my blip, I realised that there is a local free wifi which I can access from the cabin, so why not! It saves the hassle of tethering my laptop to my phone, and has allowed me to upload a full sized image.

This is the first time I've managed to blip on the day for nearly a week!