Passau Warnings Or Dangers

Be prepared of the frequent floods of the Danube ! Mostly they will occur after heavy rainfalls in the alps of Bavaria and Austria.
Click on my picture and take a look at these markings at the wall of the old townhall and compare them with the persons standing in front of it.
In 2002 the flood was a lot higher than 2,5 meters above street-level. In 1954 it was even one meter higher than that !

Be careful, when parking your car in Passau and taking a cruiseship down the Danube or biking to Vienna.The flood may easily come within a few hours !

In the centre of Passau walking along the Danube is big fun and a wide boulevard - almost without any car-trafic - with thousands of people on that boulevard might be a certain danger, when you walk, watch the ships sailing by or docked there, and do not keep in mind, that a simple step into the wrong direction will get you or your children into troubles.
I really cannot understand, why this popular side-walk does not have a fence at all !

On my picture : M/S Mozart , a cruiseship with mainly german passengers. The giant windows in front are of the indoor-swimmingpool. Just imagine swimming in the pool and watching the beautiful landscape passing by...

With so many mountain rivers coming your way, floods are just a part of life here. On the town hall, you find this measuring wall, where you can see that 2002 was a bad year, but still nowhere near 1954!

If, like me, you understand a little German from your school days, don't go to Bavaria expecting to understand anything.

The Bavarians pride themselves on speaking a dialect that only they understand. This excludes not only people from abroad but those from the rest of Germany too.

I honestly thought that I would be able to understand the topic of a conversation even if I could not understand the detail. Wrong. I understood not a thing.

An example would be "Ich sage" which, in the Bavarian dialect becomes phonetically "ee sog" although it is spelt the same when written.
Even basics like numbers do not escape the Bavarian dialect treatment. "Zwanzig" becomes "Zwonske".

Forget your 'O' level "Hochdeutsche" German and start learning a completely new language.

Flooding WILL occur in Passau regularly. It is just a case of how high the water will reach. In Rathaus place there is a marker showing water levels for the worst floods over hundreds of years. August 2002 saw the worst flooding since 1954.