Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting Around
Central Passau is sufficiently compact to explore on foot. The CityBus links the Bahnhof
with the Altstadt (€0.80) up to four times an hour. Longer trips within Passau cost €1.50; a
day pass costs €3.50 (€5 for a family).
The walk up the hill to the Veste Oberhaus or the DJH Hostel, via Luitpoldbrücke and
Ludwigsteig path, takes about 30 minutes. From April to October, a shuttle bus operates
every 30 minutes from Rathausplatz (one-way/return costs €2/2.50).
There are several public car parks near the train station, but only one in the Altstadt at
Römerplatz (€0.60/€8.40 per 30 minutes/day).
Bikehaus
( Mar-Oct)
at the Hauptbahnhof hires out bikes from €12 per day.
Bavarian Forest
Together with the Bohemian Forest on the Czech side of the border, the Bavarian Forest
(Bayerischer Wald) forms the largest continuous woodland area in Europe. This inspiring
landscape of rolling hills and rounded tree-covered peaks is interspersed with little-dis-
turbed valleys and stretches of virgin woodland, providing a habitat for many species long
since vanished from the rest of central Europe. A large area is protected as the wild and
remote Bavarian Forest National Park (Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald).
MARKTL AM INN
On a gentle bend in the Inn, some 60km southwest of Passau, sits the drowsy settlement of Marktl
am Inn. Few people outside of Germany (or indeed Bavaria) had heard of it before 19 April 2005,
the day when its favourite son, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected Pope Benedict XVI.
Overnight the community was inundated with reporters, devotees and the plain curious, all seeking
clues about the pontiff's life and times. Souvenirs like mitre-shaped cakes, 'Papst-Bier' (Pope's
Beer) and religious board games flooded the local shops.
The pope's
Geburtshaus
( 08678-747 680;
www.papsthaus.eu
; Marktplatz 11; adult/child
€3.50/free; 10am-noon & 2-6pm Tue-Fri, 10am-6pm Sat & Sun Easter-Oct)
is the simple but
pretty Bavarian home where Ratzinger was born in 1927 and lived for the first two years of his life
before his family moved to Tittmoning. The exhibition kicks off with a film (in English) tracing the
