Danube trips Passau to Linz, Linz to Krems

On our second day in Linz we purchased a combined rail/ferry ticket for 29 Euro each. It was a one hour rail trip to Passau where we had two and half hours to look around before boarding the ferry.

We didn’t realised that Passau was in Germany when we arrived. The lack of borders is confusing. It wasn’t until we saw a tee shirt with Passau Germany on it that we realised our mistake. It’s funny however that we noticed that everything in the shops seemed more expensive than we had seen in Austria.

We wanted to do a guided walk of the town but they were only available in German unless prior arrangements were made to book an English speaking guide. So we just walked around.

Tower of the Town Hall

It was a foggy morning when we arrived but began to clear up near lunch. Passau was interesting but we weren’t overly impressed.

The ferry trip was on a very large ship which took five hours to get to Linz. It had three levels with restaurant and bar services. It wasn’t very crowded although there was a large group of drinkers who seemed to be doing a four day sojourn to Vienna. They were having fun and didn’t cause any problems.

Meeting of the Danube and Ilz rivers.

We took heaps of photos. Playing spot the castle.

Obermuhl

We had to change ship at Schlogen to go on to Linz. It was another large ship bigger than the first and there were only a total of six passengers at the changeover. It was weird. More and more people got on at every stop but there was plenty of room.

The ‘full’ boat

On this days travel we went through 3 locks which was fascinating at first. We went through another 4 locks on the Linz to Krems trip so after a while they become routine.

These ferry trips are a great way to see the countryside. Very relaxing especially with good food , wine and beer. 

We enjoyed the first down river trip so much that we altered our plans about leaving Linz. Originally we had planned to go from Linz to Vienna and on to Bratislava by train but decided to go further downriver to Krems by ship. It was a seven and a half hour trip.

There were lots of people on the ship this time with lots of locals on board. There seemed to be a mixture of extended family groups and groups of friends. We boarded at 9 am and everyone started to get stuck into the beer and wine straight away. They were like a group of kids, so excited about their day trip. Lots of laughter and chatter and it soon got very boisterous.

Our only disappointment about this days travels was that it was a cloudy and misty day and it was very cold if you stayed too long on the top level. So we were constantly ducking upstairs to take some photos and then ducking back down again.

Schonbuhel

We were give a large information sheet in English with a history of the Danube and things to see along the way. The entire Danube is marked with distance markers showing the distance from where it enters the Black Sea. The whole river is over 5000 km long and we were travelling from the 2200 to 2000 km markers.

The highlights of the trip were Melk and Durnstein. Many of our fellow passengers were getting of at the various stops along the way. At Melk over half the people on the ship got off and were obviously on a similar boat/train ticket that we used to get to Passau and back. This ticket also cost 29 euro each and is a great way at a reasonable price to experience the river.

The Monastery at Melk

Durnstein

It was another very enjoyable day. Krems is very popular on the weekend so accommodation was hard to find and we ended up paying a hefty price for a one night stay. We arrived quite late and left early the next morning so we didn’t see much of the town. We did however manage to take an interesting photo.