Back in Bavaria: Past Passau and home

Tuesday July 9, 2013
Our next stop was in Zwettl, not far from our campgrounds, a nice little town and the site of another monastery, Zwettl Abbey. The abbey is situated in a small valley, in a bend of the River Kamp. As we approached the monastery, I knew this must be a Cistercian monastery, so typical was its location. The church was closed for renovation but the terrassed flower and herb gardens were lovely.

Fountain in the courtyard of the monastery

Angel with a storks nest

View from the terrassed gardens

Angels playing in the flowers

View to the monastery

We spent quite a while enjoying the early morning atmosphere on the monastery grounds and then drove on to the town of Zwettl. It has a partially intact city wall with six towers, an old town hall and a few historic townhouses. In the main square is a fountain by Friedensreich Hunderwasser.

Hundertwasser fountain in Zwettl

We saw that there was a photography exibition in Zwettl's small museum and decided to have a quick look. It was an extremely pleasant museum, the exhibits well displayed and the history of photography in Zwettl was truly interesting.

Oldtime camera at the photography exhibition

Reconstructed photographer's studio, photography exhibition - you can see Zwettl's actual church tower on the backdrop.

Zwettl

Again beautiful scenery through Austria, now in Austria's Mühlviertel. In the late afternoon we crossed into Germany and picked a campground about 8 km past Passau for our last night on the road. Here we were on the Danube Bike Trail and I was surprised to see only two cyclists at our campgrounds. We ate in the campground's restaurant since it was Sunday and I hadn't done any shopping. Our last meal on the road.

The next morning we had an easy drive to Munich. We were home by noon.