A Barge To Big

We flew into Passau by a commuter train arriving late in the afternoon from Munich and boy were our wings tired. Sorry, but the picture dictated the narrative.

Our plans for the next day were to find the correct dock for our departure the following day, as well locate some cycling helmets. We had several options for helmets that I had sourced out before we left Canada and settled on rental helmets for $18 EU, thanks to the nice folks at Fahrrad-Klinik.

Chores out of the way we set out to explore Passau. Our first stop was St. Stephens Cathedral and a chance to listen to its 17,774 pipe organ at an afternoon concert.  The organ has five sets of pipes spread around the cathedral that surrounds you in sound. The organ is the largest in Europe and second largest in the world.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the old town. We would have another opportunity to explore more of Passau upon our return. We would have the whole day as we are catching an evening train to Vienna.   

Morning of departure day and we needed to get some laundry done. Since they started charging for checked in baggage we have developed serious skills in travelling with carry on only. So it was off to the Waschtreff waschsalon. Thanks to a teaching moment in an Amsterdam laundromat, we managed to get our laundry done by carefully reading all instructions and following them to the letter. Okay, maybe there was one small mistake when I chose the wrong drying cycle and it took over 90 minutes and some extra Euros to dry our laundry. But all the instructions were in German and I blame this on my translation app.   

Meet the MC Carissima; she will be our home for the next 8 days. Building on the success of our Tulip Tour in 2018 we signed up for another bike and barge tour. This time we will cruise the Danube River from Passau Germany to Budapest, Yugoslavia with stops in Bratislava Slovakia and Vienna Austria.  Four days of the journey will involve 45 kilometre bike rides, mostly along the Danube River.

The biggest difference between our Tulip Tour and the Danauwalzer (Danube Dance) tour was size. The Magnifique II, our first barge had a passenger capacity of 46 while the Carissima had a capacity of 160. This translated into a much different vibe between the two ships.

Like the big cruise ships we were scheduled to board the Carissima in the early afternoon. We arrived concurrently as a large bus, full of fellow passengers and got caught up in a mass boarding and luggage situation which got uglier when they discovered the bar was not open yet. There were lots of grumbling and complaints, which got louder when they saw the drink package costs.

Our room was as advertised. Small but spotlessly clean. We were warned that space for luggage in the berths (rooms) was limited and they weren’t lying. We had trouble finding space to store our two carry-on(s) so we can only imagine what some of the other passengers did with their massive suitcases and carry-on bags.

The bar was a lovely place to spend time at the end of each day to watch the world go by, sipping tasty German beers and dry German whites. Free coffee was only available from 6:00 to 6:45 AM and 4:15 to 5:00 PM each day. For the rest of the day it was available for $3 EU at the bar. On the Magnifique, coffee was available for free all day.   

The dining room was located on the lowest deck. Breakfast was served buffet style and dinner was served to our table. Each morning you were presented with a menu where you would select your evening meal. You had two choices for appetizers and entrees and three choices for dessert of which one was always ice cream. On the Magnifique, we got dinner with a tasty dessert buffet. 

There was only one seating for dinner and the dining room was packed. Seating was fixed so we sat with the same people each night. Seating was set by large groups and nationalities. Our seat mates consisted of a large group of friends from different parts of Canada and they filled two tables. They were all computer nerds who had met while working with Nortel back in the 80’s but were now scattered around Canada but still got together annually some where in the world. All were in their 50’s, all single and no children.  Wifi sucked and cellular connections were spotty at best making them all very jittery.

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip but to much like a big cruise ship and not the more casual, laid back vibe of our first bike and barge. But we weren't there for the barge, it was the bike the brought us back.