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Passau

Germany's 'City on Three Rivers' is in one of the most beautiful locations on the waterways of Europe
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For a while the sheer power of the organ held my attention but as the sombre religious music droned on my mind and eyes begin to wander. A gaggle of unlikely statues perch on narrow ledges among the plaster leaves and flowers that adorn the vaulted ceiling high above my uncomfortable pew - a bare-breasted young woman clutching a flowering twig, a bearded old man patiently holding up a portion of the roof and a tall-hatted bishop sharing his perch with a comely young angel. Each, seemingly oblivious to the laws of gravity, gaze into the void with the benign unearthly expression of those who have found salvation and are lost in private communion with some higher being. I marvel at how the chubby infants are able to sustain flight with such tiny wings sprouting from their plump naked bodies. The sculptor that fashioned them in 1668 could be forgiven for having no knowledge of aerodynamics but I wondered how he imagined the flowing drapery stayed discretely in place where one would expect to see a diaper. The child in the pew in front of me begins to squirm. His mother shushes him and my mind returns from the ceiling to the numbness of my bum.

With 17,774 pipes and 233 registers the organ in St. Stephan's Cathedral is among the largest in the world and no visit to Passau would be complete without attending one of its recitals. Even if very loud religious music is not your listening preference a visit to St. Stephan's is a worthwhile experience.

Unlike so many of Europe's baroque churches where traditional stained glass filters out most of the light, the interior of St. Stephan's lofty chancel is bright with sunlight streaming through its modern windows and illuminating the statues and paintings that adorn its elaborately decorated walls and ceiling. But it's hard to ignore the organ. Somewhere in the recesses of the church the organist pulls out all the stops and launches into a thunderous finale. The child in the pew in front of me covers his ears and starts to cry. As the rumbling base pipes send reverberations through the church I find myself looking back at the ceiling and wondering how many more decibels it will take to dislodge the plaster angels from their precarious perches.

And then it is over. In the silence that follows people sit numbly in their pews for several seconds before gathering themselves up and streaming out into the narrow streets of the city.

The drone of the organ was still reverberating in my head as I left the church and set out to explore the city. It was a treat to stretch my legs and work out the kinks inflicted on my body by the unyielding oak pew. Having done my penance for the day I set out along Fritz-Schaffer Promenade and followed the river out to the narrow point of land where the Danube and Inn meet. The walkway alternately hugs the bank of the Danube and swings through stretches of woodland before entering the public park at "Conjunction Point" where a lookout provides a view of all three rivers. The "Blue Danube" long ago ceased to be blue and its water here in Passau is a muddy brown. The much smaller Inz is almost black from the peat in its headwaters, and the water of the mighty Inn is yellow with clay. For as far downstream as I can see the three colours can be distinguished as the river slips south into Austria.

Located at the confluence of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz Rivers, Passau is the last major city on the Danube before the river leaves Germany and flows into Austria. The old town, where St. Stephan's Cathedral is located, is crowded onto a narrow spit of land between the Danube and the Inn, and the 13 th -century Oberhaus Fortress sprawls across a wooded promontory between the Danube and the Ilz. Almost everything in Passau is within easy walking distance of the dock on the Danube where our boat, the Viking Spirit, is moored.

From Conjunction Point I crossed the bridge over the Danube and climbed up to Veste Oberhaus, a fortified castle with commanding views of all three rivers and across the surrounding hills of the Bavarian Forest. Built in 1219 the castle was used by Passau's ruling Prince-Bishops to control commerce on the rivers. They amassed incredible wealth by levying tolls on passing ships while the fortified walls of their castle kept out bandits and provided the self-indulgent Bishops a safe refuge from their own disgruntled subjects. Today it houses an excellent museum, where I spent a fascinating hour learning more about the history and art of Passau and its surroundings.

Because of its location at the confluence of three rivers the site where Passau now stands has been a strategic trading centre since prehistoric time. The Roman fortress of Bojodurum was built there more than 2,000 years ago and parts of the old wall have survived the countless battles that raged up and down the Danube over the subsequent millennia - Charlemagne's campaign against the Avars, the crusades, the Turkish battles and the Napoleonic wars. But despite the ebb and flow of wars and various occupying armies the city of Passau prospered, and for more than 600 years it was the largest sovereign bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire. I could have spent the entire day prowling around the old Oberhaus Fortress but barely had time to explore the city crowded onto the prow-shaped spit of land below me.

From the fortress I made my way back through the old city, became hopelessly lost and spent a glorious two hours just following my nose through its labyrinth of medieval lanes, tunnels and archways. Passau is a city compressed between two rivers and everything from its baroque buildings to its narrow streets is squeezed into as small a space as possible. Some of the pedestrian lanes are so narrow that my outstretched arms were able to touch the buildings on either side. At the end of one laneway I was surprised to find a tiny pub with a couple of outside tables, a good excuse to pause for a glass of good German beer.

As I made my way back to the river I paused to look at the high water levels inscribed on the wall of the City Hall Tower, a reminder that Passau's beautiful and strategic location is both an asset and a liability. In spring, when the Inn River is swelled by snowmelt in the Alps, Passau gets flooded. In a normal year when the gauge on the Danube rises from 17 to about 24 feet the lower streets are flooded and blocked, a minor inconvenience that the locals have come to take for granted. But not all years are normal. I cannot even reach the high water mark left by the record 1954 flood when the Danube rose to a staggering 40 feet and merged with the Inn in what is now the centre of town. The year 2002 was also bad.

But despite the risk of floods and its tight squeeze onto a narrow sliver of land Passau continues to thrive as one of the most picturesque and historically intriguing tourist destinations on the waterways of Europe.