Bling bones

Our guest house was located directly across the road from Metten Abbey, a Benedictine abbey that is one of Bavaria’s original monasteries. That meant we could hear the bells clearly as they chimed each quarter hour, plus tolled on the hour.  It made for a disturbed night’s sleep – though we should be used to the sounds of the bells by now. 

After a quick bakery stop, we were soon back in farmland, again passing through crops of wheat, barley, corn and sugar beet.  It wasn’t long before the route was closed again and we followed the detour signs along a circuitous route before returning to the river, still within sight of the spires of Metten abbey.

Our morning tea stop was planned for Nierderalteich and we stopped next to a fountain in the grounds of the town’s Basilica, once part of a Benedictine Monastery which was later dissolved and largely destroyed to be later completely restored by the local Parish. Whilst the central painting above the altar was beautiful, of greater interest were the altars on the left and right side of the church.  These contained glass shrines with bones decorated with stones from Christians that dated back to the Roman Catacombs.  

After a leisurely break, we continued onto the river, only to find that the path was closed, and the recommended detour involved a trip across the river.  A ferry was shuttling back and forth and as it approached, we readied ourselves to board, only to find that it was time for the ferryman’s hour-long lunch break. Not prepared to wait, we found an alternative route around the closure, with another castle to admire – this one Burgruine Hilgartsberg, a ruin.

We followed the Danube Planet trail, a static model of the solar system on a scale of 1:1 billion, which applied to the distance of the planets from the sun as well as the size of the models.  We found a nice shady table in the sportsboat marina/campervan park at Schmalhof across the river from Vilshofen.  We took our time over lunch and ended up chatting a while to a young Belgian lad who had been travelling in South East Asia and then cycled from Istanbul to our current location.  He was very excited to be finishing his cycle journey after multiple bike repairs and had booked his travel home for the following day.  

The path took us through a gateway made of beer crates and past a small aerodrome. It was easy riding to the outskirts of Passau where we passed an enormous lock containing one of the many river cruise boats we would see in coming days.  

It was only a short detour to a supermarket for groceries and we were soon checking into our accommodation, a nice apartment that was unfortunately situated up five flights of stairs without a lift.  

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