Day 37 - Passau

Saturday 2 July: We had a fantastic ride from Český Krumlov to Passau with Raddik who runs a small shuttle company called Comfy Tours. We chatted all the way and he shared some of his experiences of the communist period and driving tourists which he as done for about 6 years. He took us door to door, so no suitcase trundling along cobblestone streets – it sure makes a racket.

Passau is bigger than we expected, but has a greater mix of modern and historic buildings than we’ve experienced. I’ve included a couple of historic building photos for the record taken in the late afternoon light, so not too good.

We did some shopping and saw for the first time traditional clothes on sale. Frances was tempted, but settled for a dress (not the one in the photo) and pair of sandals which will easily fit into our now bulging bags.

Our a miniscule room in Hotel Wildermann is fine for one night only, as we board the Lüftner Brilliant River Cruise along the Danube

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Tonight we had a better meal. We seem to be eating much later these days, so looking for a restaurant after 8pm with the kitchen still open is a hassle.

It may had something to do with Germany playing Italy in the European cup tonight. And the score... 1-1 after 90 minutes of play and 30 minutes of overtime...sounds like an Australian election.

 Fortunately there was a Kurdish-Turkish kabab place open, so we went there to eat. No English, but incredibly helpful. We just ordered a huge plate of salad and cooked vegetables with falafel - what a treat.

Day 38 - Cruise

This is a series of maps showing the passage of the cruise we took on the Anadeus Brilliant.

Day 52 - Passau, Frankfurt

Sunday 17 July: After an overnight journey, we disembarked back in in Passau this morning after completing the 15 day cruise.

We had a breakfast in the railway Turkish Cafe and made our leisurely way to the Flix bust stop to catch a bus to Frankfurt. I never arrived, even though we had booked online.

Fortunately the next bus, an hour and a half later did arrive, late, which also caused some concern.

This was one of those testing occasions when travelling that despite having planned everything, it still goes wrong because of something out of your control.

This meant that instead of arriving at 7:30 pm, we would now arrive at almost 9pm in Frankfurt - and then have to find the accommodation in the dark.

Fortunately the WiFi on the bus was working, so I could catch up with some posts.

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We finally arrived in Frankfurt around 9pm, after 7 hours on the bus. We were exhausted from doing nothing and  I was a bit queasy from trying to update these pages on the bus  as we travelled.

The Air BnB room we'd booked was about a 20 minute walk from the bus station, but we were actually glad for a chance to stretch our legs.

We dumped our suitcases and set out almost immediately to look for somewhere to eat, and decided on a Turkish restaurant in a district nearby. We just shared a lamb kebab with salad and a lentil soup - first time we've seen red cabbage with Turkish food.

Tomorrow we'll have a little time to have a look around Frankfurt before we catch another bus around midday for a 6 hour ride (only we hope) to get to Utrecht, Holland, and then catch a couple of trains to Etten-Leur to see Frances' cousins, Ineke and Ed.