Two Passports, Two Packs/ Poles and A Purpose: August 2023

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

August 27-29: Passersby in Passau

High above the city of Passau sits the Veste Oberhaus which was originally the home of the bishop also known as the TAX COLLECTOR. Passau sits, like Pittsburgh, at the juncture of three rivers, Danube, Ilz and Inn and had plenty of river traffic (often in salt from Salzberg) for the taxing! The fortress was attacked seven times, three of them sponsored by none other than the townspeople of Passau who had no love for the bishop in their hearts! We hiked up here in the rain. The path was seriously eroded and we had to detour due to a fallen tree, but it was worth the effort to see this structure from the year 1499.

The Danube River

Long live the Danube River
Where every man from all over the world sail
Just to be with you.

Aldo Krauss

Passau, in additional to being a clean, old and interesting is where we ended our river journey with Viking cruises. As far as the cruise went, the service, food, scenery and value were great, although they did seem to cater in general to an older, less active guest demographic. But hey. I'm not complaining. We had a great time and got to spend quality moments with our US friends whom we don't see as often as we like because they live in Nashville and Cincinnati.

Claudia biking along the Inn River. We took a 2.5 hour electric bike tour and can't recommend it enough. It follows the German Camino de Santiago de Compostela! We had SO much fun and the eBike made it super easy. I am definitely having eBike lust...

Shelley, longtime friend and coworker, fashioned a tiara for herself. You wear it well!

Shelley and Claudia departed for home and we will miss these lovely ladies and travel companions extraordinaire for the rest of our journey. Safe home, y'all!

Passau is a German city on the Austrian border, and lies at the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers. Known as the Three Rivers City, it's overlooked by the Veste Oberhaus, a 13th-century hilltop fortress housing a city museum and observation tower. They wisely left the steel mills down the road in Linz unlike Pittsburg.

Our Viking ship, the Aegir at the confluence of the rivers. The Inn River drains from the Alps and has six times the volume of the Danube (not blue here due to rain this day). When it rains heavily or snow is melting, there is a tendency for the Danube to "back up and flood" due to the stronger waters of the Inn River. We saw water markings on the Town Hall up to 15 feet above the ground. When we left, the Danube was also flooding somewhat as it rained for 2 straight days all day long. The bridge we passed under with the boat was impassable.

The Veste Oberhaus has a reconstructed apothecary in it and these are some of the flasks as well as a fireplace for concoctions that need heating.

There was a paper lamp exhibit from a Japanese artist. Very cool!

The apothecary shop. The scales make sense. Not sure about the alligator!

Paul peruses Passau in the rain from the top of the observation tower.

The Oberhaus is on the Austrian side of the Danube where Germany has encroached a bit on amicably for these old structures. On the German side of the Danube, Old Town is known for its Baroque architecture, including St. Stephen's Cathedral, featuring distinctive onion-domed towers and an organ with 17,974 pipes.

St Stephen's Cathedral Passau. Apparently nearly all churches in this neck of the woods are named after Steve..

Massive pipe organ at the church. However, the church was undergoing a major renovation so we saw only parts of this and lots of scaffolding

Interior of St Stephen's Cathedral

Closer view of the ceilings

Not exactly a picture of the organ loft! There appears to be a big restoration in progress.

We spent the next two nights in the MK Hotel right next to the train station. We found it reasonably priced with good sized rooms and two desks!

Train station Passau. Not exactly a Baroque beauty but convenient and a very nice train ride.

The next day, we took extra time to explore Passau. It was raining pretty heavily, so we looked for something indoors and a bit off the beaten track. And we found the Glasmuseum! Very indoor indeed and housing over 36,000 pieces of fine art glass. This one is definitely in Atlas Obscura! And it started as a private collection. The museum opened in the 1970s with none other than Neil Armstrong cutting the opening ribbon!

I'm not sure Neil Armstrong was this happy when he walked on the moon, but they probably didn't let him have any beer made with the German purity law of 1516 up there on Luna!

The glass museum is housed inside the Hotel Wilder Manz and consists of 5 stories of glass. It's a mind-boggling amount of art glass and so pretty. Here are a few examples:

One of my favorites. I personally was drawn to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco pieces but they had pieces dating back about as far a glass does.

Case after case after case and 36,000 pieces!

Paul was fascinated by the tongue on the snake and how they managed to curve this critter around the vase.

Honestly, I could have filled up all the storage in my phone if I photographed all of it.

I would go to this museum even if it was sunny outside. So unique.
From here, we celebrated our survival of five floors of art glass by looking at three other glasses:

Bavarian beers and a complimentary lemoncello from the friendly barkeep

That summed up our day, except for the dinner at a very nice restaurant ZW020 which a brave chef opened DURING the pandemic. That took some guts, but he has made it work and the Asian influenced fusion food was great-- if anyone is looking for a restaurant recommendation. They didn't have a lot of wine selection, but what they had was good.

A very good place to eat in Passau

Overall, we had a fantastic couple of days in Passau with good friends, good food, hiking, biking sightseeing and more and the rain wasn't a deterrent to any of this. (And we got to purchase two very lightweight overpriced umbrellas, so what's not to love?)

“Most of Ludwig's excesses involved pursuits popular among Bavarians, who shared his love for hiking, drinking, and over the top decorating”
― Susan Barnett Braun , Not So Happily Ever After: The Tale of King Ludwig II

Paul's Passau Ponderings:

The Viking cruise has ended and we definitely enjoyed our time and saw a number of fantastic European cities and sights along the way.

Passau was not a city I was aware of prior to the cruise. We found it to be somewhat medieval in that it was full of numerous narrow closed lanes that allowed no vehicles. Lots of cobblestone streets. This is a town that seems like you could devote more than the day and a half we had to exploring it and the surrounding areas.

One thing we agreed on about the cruise is that it well managed, but you are docked in so many historic locations for such a short period that it is difficult to get an in-depth feel for those places you visit.

Passau is a town that we would possibly return to in the future. We recommend it as a regional place to visit.

Now, we return to Vienna by train.

August 26: Grins in Linz and Memorials in Mathausen

Charming medieval appearing alleys in Linz old city

"Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. Nature uses as little as possible of anything..." Johannes Kepler, astronomer, 1571-1630 AD and resident of Linz where he developed laws of planetary motion.

Poor Linz! I couldn't even find a quote, song lyric or poem (in English) about this little city on the Danube to start this blog. And so many tourist skip it! In fact, I think I should write a song about Linz, but today, I will work on a blog instead.

We did a walking tour with a local guide who knew plenty about Linz. He started off by saying, "I can give you the history of Linz in thirty seconds: Romans, Barbarians, Hapsburgs, Fire, Rebuild, Plague, Fire, Rebuild, Napolean, World War I, World War II, Allied Occupation, Covid. That's it!"

He was being a bit simplistic, but that is in fact a history of a great deal of Austria and its neighbors.

He gave us a few more insights as we strolled the Old City.

A CBD vending machine.

You have to have a card from an Austrian bank which will automatically let the machine know if you are over 18 (Legal CBD age) and if so, it will take your money and dispense your product. If you are under 18 or a foreigner, you pay someone older/Austrian citizen 5 euros and they get it for you. (Not unlike underage drinking in the USA!)

We only saw one CBD dispensers in Linz and there appeared to be about 44 coffee shops in Linz with plenty of customers and a large number of sausage stands with tasty looking wurst!

We were told to order the Bosner, the best of the Wurst!

Linz is a city in Upper Austria, straddling the Danube River midway between Salzburg and Vienna. Baroque buildings, including Old Town Hall and the old cathedral or Alter Dom, and ring Hauptplatz, the old town’s main square are abundant. The guide was convinced we would not want to see the main church after coming this far down a Danube full of religious buildings. Actually, I wouldn't have minded, but whatever. He is the guide and I am the guided!

The riverside Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz has a major modern art collection. Hitler had planned to open the world's largest fine arts museum in Linz after winning WWII, hence all the stolen art (represented in The Monument Men, for those who get their history in cinemas.) The museum, in addition to displaying art, spends a lot of time researching stolen art and returning it.

The impressive exterior structure of the Linz art museum along the Danube. We didn't get the privilege of going inside.

Across the river, the striking Ars Electronica Center focuses on society, technology and life in the future.

Ars Electronica Center lit up at night. There is a festival here annually and the guide seemed pretty stoked about it. He said last year, they coordinated a concert in which everyone in Linz opened their windows and turned on their radios while the symphony broadcast through all the streets. Another year, Ars Electronica Festival organized an entire ballet performed by pieces of heavy equipment such as cranes and tractors. I would have loved to have seen it.

Overall though, Linz seemed like a normal really clean and cutesy town along the Danube with several interesting features.

Our lady of Linz....hairstylist's patron

Our guide told us that while he was training, he was told to always mention Mozart at least five times in any tour. It ends up Mozart was in Linz several times and stayed at this house where he wrote the Symphony #36 (Linzer symphony) in less than 72 hours on request of his host. Such a wunderkind! Beethoven also visited Linz to see his brother.

Hitler was born very near Linz and had lots of plans for it. During WWII, he constructed steel and chemical factories here to aid the war effort and they are still mostly operational.

We enjoyed our walk through Linz which included people-watching at the Saturday flea market and a look at the Trinity statue which depicts patron saints who have saved them from war (the Ottomans were stopped in Vienna), fire (well, they were partially protected) and plague (not really but maybe less people died?).

Saints Sebastian, Florian and Carlo Borromeo and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost guard the main square of Linz and the shoppers at Saturday flea market.

In the afternoon of our one day whirlwind Linz tour, we took a trip out to the nearby Mathausen work camp. I won't go too heavily into detail here as if you know anything about WWII, you are at least conceptually aware of the camps and deaths of the Jewish and other oppressed people living in Europe. Paul and I have never been to a camp, and although we knew it would be emotionally challenging, we thought we should see a camp at least once to imprint in our minds how awful this was and to inspire us when we spot injustice and discrimination. We certainly realize that there are plenty of discriminatory acts in the USA even today and we want to fight against anything dehumanizing that occurs both on an individual and national level.

I am going to forego most photos I took and in fact, not talk about a lot of what we saw, because it is 1. the worst sort of bummer and 2. too disturbing for many readers. Here's what I am willing to say which could be too much for some, so feel free to skip fthe remainder of the post:

Mathausen was not a death camp where people were transferred specifically for extermination. It was a Class III work camp and apparently the only such class in the Nazi camps. This meant that people, nearly all men, were sent to work and that additionally, no one could leave alive. They were a big success in their mission--to work people to death. The camp is at a stone quarry and stone was needed to build various buildings, roads and to make concrete, etc. Stone was quarried in the valley and then carried by men in 50 kilogram weights up to the top of the hill via a set of stairs to be transported for Hitler's infrastructure.

The stairs that the prisoners were forced to carry 50kg stones to the top. The caloric needs to do this daily were about 4000-5000 calories, but the prisoners were receiving only about 450-500 per day. Average life expectancy in this camp was 8-12 weeks. These steps were called "the stairs of death."

A view of the quarry.

All in all about 95,000 captive prisoners died at Mathausen, of which approximately 14,000 were Jews. Other individuals seen as enemies of the Nazis who were taken there were Romani (gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, criminals, homosexuals and political enemies. There were also some prisoners of war amongst them and there were people classified as "asocial" which were a great variety of people whose behavior was not condoned for even minor infractions.

Roll call at Mathausen camp. Everyone had their heads and body hair removed on arrival.

Mathausen camp was liberated by American troops. On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an “International Committee” formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5. Further units, including the 11th Armored Division of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days. Prisoners were sent to hospitals or home. Unfortunately some died even after the liberation due to longer lasting effects of either disease, starvation or refeeding syndromes.

The only good things that I can see in this visit is that countries have come and made memorials to those who perished here. So many of them are mass buried in the region and on the site of the camp.

Americans had few who died here (praise the Lord) and most that did were Special Ops. The Austrian townsfolk erected these plaques to honor the liberators. It's the least conspicuous of the memorials in the remains of the camp.

Monument to those who perished.

Italian monument

Menorah monument erected by the Israeli government.

There was a lot more to this work camp than I will write about, much of it too gruesome for a blog post. Although upsetting, I am glad that we went. I don't think I will ever visit another concentration camp even though there were approximately 44,000 of them in Nazi Europe, but it strengthened commitments to defending others. As graffiti I saw in Passau said, "No human is illegal."

For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.

Simon Wiesenthal

Paul's Ponderings: This was definitely the most serious part of our trip. I've never been to one of these camps, so it was all new and obviously pretty shocking. As a longtime WWII buff, I was intrigued to map this site into what I knew in general about this situation. This camp is NOT one I had heard off previously, although it fit the pattern for what went on in general.

Before the seriousness of the camp, we visited Linz, which was a nice town on the Danube. The weather continued to be VERY HOT during this time of our journey, but we are expected to get some relief in the next day or so.

Friday, August 25, 2023

August 25, 2023: Gottwieg Abbey near Krems

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.---- John Keats

Krems, as it's known to its friends, is the gateway to the Wachau (a UNESCO heritage site) and one of the prettiest towns sitting astride the Danube. A region-driven food scene; an intact historical centre; top-quality Grüner Veltliner and riesling whites from local vineyards; and high-calibre museums attract the summer crowds, but the rest of the year things quieten down a notch. Aimless wandering is the way to go, dipping into churches and museums, strolling the banks of the Danube and sampling wines.

And we did....none of that. Although it certainly appealed on paper, we took instead a BUS TRIP to Gottweig Abbey. And we are glad we did!

Aerial view of Gottweig Abbey today

The abbey was established as a Benedictine monastery in 1083 by the Bishop of Passau and hasn't always been this big or splendorous. Göttweig became a famous seat of learning and strict monastic observance. A monastic school, organized a library, and at the foot of the hill built a nunnery were established and is where it is believed that Ava, the earliest German language woman poet known by name (d. 1127), lived as an anchorite. The nunnery, which was afterwards transferred to the top of the hill, continued to exist until 1557. The library remains despite a devastating fire and contains documents on parchment dating back to the 5th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, however, the abbey declined to such an extent that between 1556 and 1564 it had no abbot at all, and in 1564 not a single monk remained. At this crisis, an imperial deputation arrived at Göttweig and elected Michael Herrlich, a monk of Melk Abbey, as abbot. The new abbot, who held his office until 1603, restored the monastery spiritually and financially, and rebuilt it after it had been almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1580.

Shelley enjoys a look down into the Wachau Valley

What she is looking at

One of 30 parishes attended to by the monks who also tend vineyards and the forest. The forest is now the greatest source of income

It's on the Camino Santiago de Compostelo...only 3000km away. See the shell on the middle sign.

The cathedral

The ceiling of the Hapsburg quarters painted in 45 days by Paul Troger in 1793. It contains non-Biblical mythological references and King Charles is riding a chariot in the center as if to say, "Well, I am God here, and you have to accept what I say!"

This black flag was flying on our arrival. The guide said it wasn't a tribute to Henry Rollins and his musical talents, but that a monk had died either last night or today. He said the oldest monk was 86 and the youngest 24. They only fly this flag when someone dies. There are only a few monks living here now and the number has vacillated over the years from 0 to 80.

We got to sample some of their apricots in this dumpling. Shelley and Claudia said it "rang all our Southern bells"

Close up!

The chef who taught the class. Lots more ingredients than I expected. They gave us a printed copy of the recipe.

We saw almost none of Krems on this brief stop along the Danube except for a walk on the river bank. Not very amazingly, we found gelato. Paul found the internet.