Down the Danube from Passau to Budapest

The Danube rises in the Black Forest and flows for nearly three thousand kilometres to the Black Sea, through or along the borders of ten countries, more than any other river in the world. Its most famous stretch is the middle section, from Passau on the German border, through Austria and past Bratislava, to Budapest. It is a journey of a few hundred kilometres that crosses the old heart of central Europe, and it has been a highway for traders, armies and pilgrims since the Romans made the river the northern frontier of their empire.

Passau and the Austrian Danube

Passau is a fine place to start. The old town sits on a narrow peninsula where three rivers meet: the Danube, the Inn from the Alps and the small Ilz from the north. Each has its own colour, and from the hill above the town you can see the green water of the Inn and the dark water of the Ilz running side by side with the Danube before they mix. The town's baroque cathedral has one of the largest church organs in the world.

Downstream, in Austria, Linz is the first city, an industrial town on the river with a lively cultural life, and further on the river passes Mauthausen, where the Nazis built a concentration camp beside the granite quarries, now a memorial.

The Wachau

The finest stretch of the whole river is the Wachau, a valley of some thirty-five kilometres between Melk and Krems, west of Vienna. Here the Danube runs between steep hills terraced with vineyards and apricot orchards, past small wine villages, onion-domed churches and castle ruins on the heights. The valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it is famous for its white wines, especially its Grüner Veltliner and Riesling.

At its western end stands Melk Abbey, a huge baroque Benedictine monastery on a rock above the river, its yellow facades and towers visible for miles. Its library and church are among the most splendid in Austria. Further down is Dürnstein, a small walled town below a ruined castle where, the story goes, Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner on his way home from the crusades, until his ransom was paid.

Three capitals

Below the Wachau the river enters a wider plain and reaches Vienna, the old imperial capital, with its palaces, museums and coffee houses. An hour or so downstream, Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, sits close to the borders of Austria and Hungary, its castle a white block with four towers on the hill above the river. For centuries, when Buda was under Ottoman rule, Bratislava, then called Pressburg, was where the kings of Hungary were crowned.

The river then turns south at the Danube Bend, a dramatic curve where it cuts through hills, and comes into Budapest, where it passes between the royal palace on the Buda hills and the vast neo-Gothic parliament on the Pest bank. The Danube Bend has sights of its own. Esztergom, on the right bank where the river forms the border with Slovakia, was the first capital of the Hungarian kingdom, and its great domed basilica, the largest church in Hungary, stands on a hill above the water. A little further on, the ruins of the royal castle at Visegrád look down on the bend from a steep wooded height, and the little town of Szentendre, with its Serbian churches and painted houses, sits close to the bank just north of Budapest.

Arriving by river at Budapest, especially in the evening when the bridges and the parliament are lit, is one of the finest approaches to any city in Europe.

The trips that follow it

Just You's Cruising the Danube, seven nights for solo travellers, follows the river through Passau, Linz, Melk, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest, with a visit to the historic town of Steyr, and begins and ends in Munich.

For those who would rather travel by land, Travelsphere's Imperial Capitals: Budapest, Vienna & Prague, seven nights, follows the Danube from Budapest through Bratislava to Vienna before turning north to Český Krumlov and Prague.

The river season runs from spring to autumn. Spring brings blossom in the Wachau's apricot orchards, summer long evenings on deck, and September and October the grape harvest. In early winter, the Christmas markets of Vienna and Budapest add another reason. The one thing the Danube is not, despite the waltz, is blue: on most days it is a solid grey-green. Nobody seems to mind.