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My body’s internal alarm clock is off by an hour. Whenever I know I’ve got to be up at a certain time, I always seem to wake up an hour earlier and can’t get back to sleep. Which happened this morning. So I was up at 6am after a late night of movie watching. (Although luckily, we went into a lock towards the end of the movie and lost the signal so we gave up without watching the whole thing). But we’ve been doing pretty well on sleep so it wasn’t a huge problem.
We arrived in Melk around breakfast time. Melk is a very small town but its claim to fame, and it’s a good one, is Melk Abbey, a Benedictine Abbey that sits on an outcropping above the town (and dominates the skyline of the town). It’s been an abbey for 900 years, which even for Europe is a pretty long time. Although it burned nearly to the ground and was rebuilt in the early 1700’s so it’s of that period in architectural style.
We drove up to it in buses and sort of descended down to it from the parking lot above, so you get a view of the Abbey (which is quite large) and the town below.
You enter into a huge courtyard, bounded on four sides by 3 stories of the abbey and with a view on one end of the towers of the chapel. The building is yellow and white and the tops of the towers are blue and gold. It was a glorious sunny day and it really looked beautiful.
We met our guide, who did not give her name, probably to protect herself from the negative comments she would have received. She was not particularly good unfortunately. Not as bad as Rolfie in Cologne but number two.
We headed into the imperial wing. This is the wing they built to greet and entertain guests, particularly, the ones who were funding the place. They received money from the various kings and aristocracy in the region with the caveat that when they showed up, they would be taken care of. And by “they”, they meant themselves and their generally quite large entourage (they’re like rappers I guess). The entryway is suitably grand but not ostentatious (it’s no Wurzburg Bishop Palace by any stretch). You come up in the middle of a looong hallway (over 600 feet) with portraits of every ruler of Austria since day one of Austria – the Babenbergs followed by the Hapsburgs.
We then wandered through 4 or 5 rooms of displays (the abbey museum) while our guide gave us some commentary. The museum is nicely done. The right level of stuff to see. In one room the floor curves up and down to represent the ups and down of life. In another, there was a sculpture made up of 11 figures coming out of the wall. Each a bit more than the last. Then you represent the 12th as a fully realized person. Very interesting displays.
The most interesting tidbit though was the abbey contains the tomb of Saint Coloman of Stockerau, a martyr. He was an Irish pilgrim on the way to the Holy land, traveling through Austria at a time of unrest, and because of his strange appearance and inability to speak German he was thought a spy and tortured and hung. Oops. He was buried under the tree he was hanged from and apparently, the tree started blooming afterwards (I guess it was thought dead) and people started thinking he was maybe holy. Anyway, the monks dug him up and buried him at the abbey and have a jawbone as a relic.
Marion and I thought maybe the tree bloomed because the body acted as fertilizer. But anyway, it seems a weak premise to base sainthood on (and probably had more to do with feeling guilty). My thought though was, if something that simple can be taken as a sign of sainthood, why wouldn’t the fact your abbey burned to the ground be a pretty MAJOR sign that maybe God didn’t want an abbey just there or that there might be something about your lifestyle that had not found favor. That didn’t seem to happen. But a tree buds and this guy’s a saint. Don’t get me started on religion.
The best room in the place was the library. The abbey has 80,000 old books, about 15,000 of which were on display in two massive and beautiful library rooms. The one place in the abbey, of course, where you aren’t allowed to take pictures. But 4 walls covered in books on shelves 10 feet tall with another level above. Dark wood bookshelves with gold. And cutouts you can open to let in light if you want to read in there. There are apparently 8 more rooms below of archives and what not. It’s one of the great collections.
The tour ended at the chapel. They don’t want people giving talks in there. But we were allowed in. And while not as impressive as Passau (I doubt there’s much that is) it was quite a beautiful church in its own right. Much more gold and marble than Passau which with all the Rococo was more greys and whites. It also had a large and impressive pipe organ in the back. (Hope the guy from Texas saw it. He really needs to get out more.)
The way out and down was using a beautiful multi-story (4 or 5 at least) stone circular staircase that I just loved. They had put a mirror at the bottom so when you looked down the middle of it, it seemed to go on forever.
We decided to walk back to the ship rather than take the bus and have a look at downtown Melk. The abbey is up on a hill so the walk was downhill and down stairs. We found the stairs and thus missed the gardens which apparently were quite nice. Oh well. Melk is pretty much one main street and not a long one at that. We found 3 or 4 stores to stop in. In one, while browsing, a woman came in and asked the proprietor where the path to the abbey was. She told her and she left. I asked her, how many times a day do you get asked that question. She just sighed and said “oh, about 500”. I can imagine it gets old quickly. Then again, I suspect 99% of their business is from people who came to see it.
We managed to take a slightly wrong turn and ended up coming back to the boat a bit of the long way around. But it was a nice walk and the weather was sunny and warm which it hasn’t been much so far. So that was nice.
After lunch everyone (including me) went up to the top deck for the cruise through the Wachua (Va-cow) valley. “The most beautiful stretch of the Danube” according to our program director Gary. I have no reason to believe otherwise although apart from the occasional castle, I think the Columbia River Gorge is prettier. But the occasional castle and quaint little town does add a flavor the gorge can’t compete with. It really is quite pretty.
Along the way we passed a couple of beaches where people were swimming and a few other areas where people were sunbathing sans clothing. And happily standing and waving to the boat in some cases according to some, although I didn’t see any of that. Just a few rumps. Much less prudish these Europeans than we Americans.
One of the castles we passed was where Richard the Lionheart was held captive and ransomed. He was making his way back from the Holy Land and in some way offended the locals and gave himself away by using an English coin to pay for something (he was traveling in disguise). Anyway, they snagged him and put him up in a lovely dungeon until the English paid his ransom. No one knew where he was. His trusty minstrel went from castle to castle, playing a tune only he (Richard) knew and when finally he played it at this castle, and the king joined in, they had found him. But they still had to pay to get him out. Apparently quite a hefty sum. Enough that they built a whole new town with the money.
The last town just before we docked was called Durnstein and it has a really beautiful blue and white church tower as well as being a pretty little town in its own right. It and the Schonbuhel Castle serve as the beginning and endpoint (depending on which direction you’re headed on the river) of the Wachua section.
We docked at Krems and had the opportunity to walk into town, which we did. This is the first town we visited that was not a former medieval stronghold or Bavarian UNESCO site or some such. Just a normal German small town, which was nice. Between walking to and from the boat and walking through town we did about 2 hours. All this walking has been good for us (and my back which is feeling much better). We told the folks at dinner it was all training for Vienna tomorrow when we’re doing three tours in one day.
It was a special night on the boat – “A Taste of Austria”. They all dressed up in Austrian costumes (lederhosen and dirndls) and they cooked Austrian specialties like stuck pig and schnitzel. Plus some samplings of Schnapps. We tried a couple of varieties. That stuff is *strong*. There were two “strolling minstrels” playing Austrian tunes on accordion and Dimche the crazy waiter (who was imbibing his share of schnapps) was dancing around and forcing shots on people. The minstrels seemed to stroll everywhere we did since they always seemed to be right on top of us.
We also got to tour the galley and see where the meals were cooked and meet the cooks. That was fun and the cooking team seemed to enjoy it. It’s a surprisingly small area for feeding 200 people 3 meals every day.
It was all very fun. It was just too bad the desserts weren’t that good (sachertorte is very dry – or at least theirs was).
Tomorrow will be a busy day but we get to see Vienna which we’ve been looking forward to.
7/4/14
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