Thursday 30th The hills are alive with the sound of............

............ Rain.
Awake this morning to grey skies, and left the ship to vist Sound of Music country. First stop was Mondsee, which is a beautiful town in upper Austria. This town is on lake Mondsee and is a popular resort town for Austrians. The local church was the setting for the wedding scene in the Sound Of Music and we couldn't see into it for a short time as there was a service going on. Today was a public holiday for Corpus Christie day, an important day in their religious calendar. We watched the locals emerge from the service, many of the girls were wearing Dirndls and the blokes in their Lederhosen, everybody was dressed up and they were carrying a piece of a Laurel branch which they will place in their homes for the next twelve months.
The church itself was beautiful and not overly ostentatious like a lot of them.
By this time it had started to rain and it didn't letup for the rest of the day.
Then it was on to Salzberg. We started a walking tour with a guide but eventually called that off as it was no fun wandering around in the rain. Our umbrellas finally gave up and we retired them. A pair of new ones cost all of 11 Euros for two. Looking for shelter, the first two cafes were chockers and the next was Maccas, at least it was dry and warm.
There was a classic sports car rally in one of the squares with Etype Jags, BMW's, Porsches, MGB's, Bentleys. More than you would ever see in Australia.
Their local church is also one of the most beautiful of all we have seen (and that's saying something).
Then it was thankfully back to the bus which took us to Passau in Germany to meet up with the ship which had travelled there during the day.
Now for the news.
It's been raining, hasn't it?, We are on a major river, aren't we?. Rivers flood don't they?
We were called into the lounge before dinner to be told by the Captain and the Cruise Director that we will have to make major changes to our cruise. Instead of going to Regensberg tomorrow, MS Amabella will only go as far as Deggendorf  where we will travel by coach to Regensberg for the planned activity and then on Saturday we will leave Amabella and drive on to Nuremberg where we will board the sister ship MS Amaverde. This ship is doing the reverse trip to us and those passengers will swap on to Amabella. It is hoped that we will then be able to continue on the Amaverde through to Amsterdam, it is possible, however, that we may have to use coaches on land for part of the journey. Hopefully that won't happen. Apparently the section of the river we are going to avoid will be at its highest and we won't be able to get under the bridges.
They are talking about the possibility of 100 year flood levels in Austria. Trust us to be here hey?
The captain and the cruise director have the safety of the passengers as their first priority and we will do whatever they think best.