Cruise Description

4 Night Cruise sailing from Passau roundtrip aboard nickoVision.

Cruise Overview:
With short trips in the pre-Christmas period, you can properly relax and unwind before the excitement and commotion of the special days of the festive holidays hits you. Enjoy the splendour of the Austrian cities of Vienna and Linz at this quite special time of year and stroll through the festive Christmas markets. Another highlight of this trip is the visit to the "Christkindl" town Steyr, which will enchant you with its pre-Christmas splendour.

Highlights of this cruise:

Passau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflussestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north.

Tourism in Passau focuses mainly on the three rivers, the St. Stephen's Cathedral and the "Old City". With 17,774 pipes and 233 registers, the organ is the second largest in the world. Organ concerts are held daily between May and September.

Passau is also known for its gothic and baroque architecture. The town is dominated by the Veste Oberhaus and the former fortress of the Bishop, on the mountain crest between the Danube and the Ilz rivers. Right beside the town hall is the Scharfrichterhaus, an important jazz and cabaret stage on which political cabaret is performed.

Vienna
Vienna is a unique blend of the historic and the modern with a wealth of architecture and artistic and musical heritage. Many of the world’s most important composers, including Beethoven and Mozart, have lived and performed behind Vienna’s Baroque façades. In addition to this Baroque splendor, there are excellent examples of Art Nouveau architecture.

The heart of Vienna is the Innerestadt where some of Vienna’s most popular tourist attractions can be found, along with pedestrianized streets lined with countless shops, cafés, bars and restaurants. The center point is the Graben (literally ‘moat’), which is a wide square lined with shops and pavement cafés under large umbrellas. Following the demolition of the city walls in 1857, the Ringstrasse was laid out and some of Vienna’s most beautiful buildings were built along it, between 1858 and 1865. Among the most important are the Staatsoper (State Opera House), Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts), Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum), Parlament (Parliament), Rathaus (City Hall) and Burgtheater.

Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria It is located in the north centre of Austria. Linz is largely an industrial student town; however it has many historical buildings and numerous churches. Visitors can view many splendid town residences, chapter houses and the little lanes of the old town which lie directly at the foot of the castle. The large, baroque main square is also worth a visit.