Narrow cobblestone streets and the aroma of fresh gingerbread welcome you to Passau, a Bavarian town nestled on the confluence of three of Europe’s main waterways, the Danube, the Inn and the Llz. One of the homes looks positively medieval and the other looks very modern.
Today, we went to a local farm to see how rural people live. This third generation farmer and his family raise cattle in a mechanized way and create several kinds of cheeses. The cows looked relaxed and went into an area where they were automatically hooked up to be milked. When finished, they left the area (with smiles, no doubt). The floor of the barn had an automated bar that swept what the cows left several times a day (into a place I wouldn’t want to visit!). This is the before and after milking. The cows seems happier after!
They also had llamas, goats, and miniature horses. After the tour, we went into a large dining room where we tasted their homemade beer and the cheeses. It was very interesting, but not our favorite tastes.
We returned to Passau to walk through the town. For the first time in the past two weeks, the weather changed to heavy clouds and rain. As we walked, there were marks on the side of a building indicating how high the water was during floods and the year of the flood. It wasn’t very long ago and the level of water had to be frightening. In 2013, the water rose 12.89 meters, and in 2024, to 10.02 meters.
After walking around the town, we went to the city hall. It is quite impressive from the outside. As we were entering, the sky opened up, leaving us with the decision to walk back to the ship. A nice cup of hot tea awaited me, along with the normal 4:00 PM goodies in the bar area.
Tomorrow, we head to Prague, a city that by all estimations is among the most beautiful in Europe. It was never bombed during WWII, which allowed the Germans to store many of the goods they stole from the people they sent away, never to return to their homeland. After the war, many of the items were spirited out of the Czech Republic, slowly discovered over the decades.
I was always told by my mother that her town was on the Czech/ Romanian border (now Ukraine). This would have been on the far eastern end of the country. But, in doing research, I found that her town, Velky Buckov, was actually in Central Bohemia, west of Prague. This was a revelation to me. I was also told that my father’s town, Kobyl Poljana, was only about 12 km away from her town. This also was not accurate, if the Czech name of the town is correct. It may not exist or is called something else now, because a town with a similar name was quite far away, southeast of Prague near Brno.
I was born, in Teplice, almost due north of my mother’s town, where we waited for the final papers to immigrate to the US when I was six months old. I visited my birth city in 2005 to get a valid Czech birth certificate. My mother only had a worn type-written piece of paper indicating my birth. It took about two months, but voila, the official document was sent to the Czech Embassy in Washington, D.C., and ultimately sent to me. I was finally “official.” Then, I had to have it translated into English and Spanish. It was well-worth it!
Enough of my story. We had long bus ride from Passau to Prague, where we will be for a few days.