What I love best about river journeys is just cruisin’. Watching the river glide past, reflections, trees, birds, other boats, tiny settlements, distant hills, clouds. That photo up there was taken as we followed a curve in the river. The water was like molten silver, and the sun was hidden behind a thin veil of cloud. Gorgeous.
We were on our way to Passau, where most of the passengers would get off and catch the Majestic Imperator, Emperor Franz Joseph’s Imperial train, up to Salzburg. Needless to say, we’d done the trip in 2015 (all explained here) and you might say we were all Sound of Music’d out. Eight of us elected to stay on board, either because they were recovering from illness, or because they wanted a break from the relentless pace of sight-seeing. Our tour director told us that the stretch from Passau to Linz, where the Salzburg visitors would rejoin the ship, was one of the prettiest along the Danube.
The day dawned misty, as it had for the past week, but it burned off quickly, with a brilliant blue sky. Soon we were off, sailing between forest-clad slopes through a series of bends and curves. This probably used to be a bit like the steep slopes of the Rhine Gorge thousands of years ago. There were still some rocky promontories here and there. Unfortunately, the wind picked up, an icy blast whistling across the water, so I only ventured out to take photos a few times, and there wasn’t much in the way of reflections. A few weeks later these slopes would be a picture of gold and russet. Here and there I caught a hint of the glories to come.
That evening after our fellow travellers had rejoined us we were treated to a spectacular sunset, with the ship, and the river, in just the right place to generate a magnificent display. This would have to be my favourite picture from the whole trip.
Tomorrow we cruise to Melk, the Wachau Valley, and Durnstein.
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