On the 4th day of our river cruise, we arrived in Passau, Germany, where the Danube, Ilz, and Inn rivers meet.  The Husband’s awesome brother and sister-in-law decided to travel up from Rome to meet us for the day as well as their friends from Austria.  Unfortunately, when we arrived, we learned we’d only be there for 4 hours!! Traveling on a river is slow going so in order to get to Melk the next day in a timely manner, Passau’s visit was going to be short.  Luckily the sibs arrived the night before so we walked straight to their hotel room as soon as the boat docked.

Once we started walking around Passau, we saw why only a few hours were scheduled – it’s a small town with not much to do!  It primarily served as a drop off point for those going on the excursion to Salzburg (who would be picked up farther down the river after their day tour).  Apparently Passau is famous for its St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  The Christmas Market was set up right in the cathedral’s square.

It was a cold and dreary morning, but not too cold thankfully.  We meandered around the Christmas Market but it didn’t offer much of anything that weren’t at the earlier ones.

We saw a pretty clock tower…

And an odd mannequin wrapped in gold in one of the small alleyways/streets…

We spent as much time as possible with the sibs and friends before we headed back to the boat.

And took a quick photo to capture how awesome they were for coming up for what turned out to be such a quick visit!

We hopped back on the boat and continued the trip down the Danube toward Melk…