How do I describe the air within St. Stephan's Cathedral in Passau's altstadt (old city)?
Just a few minutes of it was intoxicating - cold, crisp and ancient as if a breeze ferried it through Christ's tomb early on Easter Sunday. Any tired muscles driving on purely from habit awoke anew beneath the magnificent columns and ceiling paneled in Biblical images.
I had to start with the rare, rich air, though our day started with a last shuffle through Zwiesel and the winding path to Passau, the town of 50,000 where the Danube meets the rivers Inn and Ilz, making it the Pittsburgh of Bavaria (similarities end with the river gathering, of course).
Home to a university 10,000 students strong, Passau follows history back 2,000 years when the Romans under Marcus Aurelius laid out a city there, hardly a surprise give the strategic importance of three rivers running into each other.
Few sites along our journey stood out like the cathedral (Der Passauer Stephansdom), home of what for centuries ranked as the world's largest pipe organ. Since surpassed by some megachurch's showpiece in California, 17,774 pipes are still nothing to sneer at.
Close to the altar, a column support an ornate gold staircase which ended at a single seat, as if engineer only for an emperor or bishop.
The architecture of the altstadt combined with the public plazas and streets often too narrow for cars turned the little burg into a can't-miss stop. Sidewalk cafes blossomed everywhere in the city's older sections and the crowds filled out the space between.
Stepping away from them, it's difficult to walk anywhere without running up against a river; much of the city sits at or just above water level.
Searching for an Internet cafe so Mitzy could solve the riddle of her rejected credit card, we wandered through a good portion of it, including some less picturesque stops like the bus depot, where we finally received directions to one such cafe from a student who apparently bathed in cologne (I almost gagged when the wind picked up, but then again, not showering that morning didn't give me the right to complain).
Solving the card crisis, we found nice cafe on the main stretch of the altstadt and happily went on hiatus from the heavy meats that occupied every meal thus far.
After dinner, I ducked into one of the many alcoves which ran into open-air courtyards surrounded by businesses and found a weather-streaked statue of a crusader or pope (he appeared to wear chain mail or armor, but carried a cross and no weapons) at a fountain's edge. Aside from a few sunset cityscape shots, this Medieval mystery was my last touch of Passau's flourishes.
Until after we departed, I had no inkling about one nugget from the city's past: Hitler's family lived here when he was just a toddler.
A laundry list of wrong turns later, and we crossed into Austria as easily as state lines come and go at home.
(Next time: Thalgau after dark)
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