Daytrip to Passau

Recently, we went on a daytrip to Passau with our friends, Craig and Sophie. Luckily, we had a fantastic fall day for it - crisp and sunny! Passau is at the confluence of three rivers - the Inn, Ilz and Danube - and we spent much of our time walking near them or overlooking them.

The confluence of three rivers as seen from the hilltop

We should probably learn to do our daytrips on Saturdays because on Sundays all the shops are closed (and there were a few nice-looking chocolaterias). It was still quaint to walk around the town's old center and see the church and their city hall. There was a great riverwalk and across the river, we did a short hike to a vantage point over the city.



Not sure which river this one is, but the riverwalk along it was gorgeous



Afterward, we stopped and had lunch at a Greek place. We came across their cathedral which was beautiful on the inside with lots of whitewashed, carved marble. They also had a display set up for the fall with a furry muppet-looking wheat crown and quite a few gourds, but sadly, we didn't get any pictures of that. You'll just have to believe us on it.



Passau Dom St. Stephen on the inside

You can see the rest of our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ayeletdrori/Fall2010?feat=directlink

Afternoon in the Park: Westpark

There are a lot of great parks in Munich - Englisch Gartens, Hirschgarten, park surrounding the Nymphenburg palace, etc. On Saturday, we decided to bike to one that was southeast of our place, West Park, which apparently was just completed in the '80s. It's a sprawling park and not as filled to the brim as Englischer Garten would be on a day like Saturday, but there were still a lot of people out.

I should explain that Saturday seemed to mark a turn in weather for Munich *hopefully*. We've been having weeks on end of drizzling rain or cloudy skies threatening to rain. So Saturday and the whole of next week with the 80-degree plus weather and sunny skies have been and will be a very welcome change. We're all ready for summer.

In West Park, we first rode up to the Asian section of the park with it's pagoda and Chinese garden. Then, we rode past its rolling hills and little lakes. We ate our lunch sitting on a bench by the lake filled with ducks, turtles and carp... plus one really crazy bird that looked like it was jittery from too much caffeine or something. Overall, it was a great day to be biking around and the park was quite nice, but I think we'll probably stick to our favorites - Hirschgarten or Nymphenburg palace grounds - when we want to go to a park.