Melk Abbey

After the Danube river cruise we traveled a short distance to the Melk Abbey located above the town of Melk overlooking the Danube river.  The Melk Abbey is one of the most famous monestic sites in the world, founded in 1089 by Benedictine monks from Lambach Abbey when a castle was donated by Leopoldo II.  The current Baroque abbey was designed and built between 1702 and 1736.  The Abbey church is decorated with wonderful frescos and the library contains an impressive collection of medieval manuscripts.  Because of the abbey's fame and academic status, it has managd to survive many threats to its existence including the Napoleonic Wars and the Nazi domination.  To learn more about the impressive history of the Abbey, see Melk Abbey.

This was a spectacular setting with wonderful architecture, beautiful views of the countryside, and beautiful paintings and art within.  The photo set with this post contains some of the most beautiful photos of the trip.  During our tour, we walked through the major courtyard, some of the Abbey, some museum rooms, the library, a fantastic dining room / ballroom, the church, and across a balcony with fabulous views of the countryside.  In one of the museum rooms the magnificent Melk Cross was displayed, adored with precious jewels and said to contain an actual splinter of the Crucifix of Christ in a compartment inside the jeweled cross.

This was a very interesting tour and worth anyone's time who passes through this area.

Last Evening in Vienna

After a full day with the Danube River cruise and the visit to the Monestary, we were back n Vienna with a free evening.  So with our friends, Vickie and Paul Pitts, and another traveling companion, Bob, we asked the desk for a restaurant recommendation serving excellent Viennese food.  A young man working behind the front desk produced a short, printe list of recommended restaurants and circled one for us.  He assured us this was a small, family restaurant with excellent food, and that he had taken his parents there.  He said this in all seriousness while looking directly at Linda and I!  We laughed about it as we walked down the street, as we are more than old enough to be his parents.  It just struck us as a funny comment.  The food was excellent, by the way.

Cafe Central

After a long day that included a city tour in the morning, the Opera House tour early afternoon, some walking around just looking, then ending with the stable tour at the Spanish Riding School late afternoon, we were hungry and tired.  Something with outdoor seating was our first criteria, and we settled on Cafe Central.  Below is a photo from in front of the beautiful building where this restaurant we located.  We had a perfect table in their small outside seating area.  The occasional horse and buggy would clop past, giving us the feeling of old Vienna.  The food was pure Austrian and delicious.

They had beautiful desserts in cases inside, but we restrained ourselves this time as the meals were filling enough.  It was a perfect end to a perfect day.

Spanish Riding School of Vienna

The Spanish Riding School is the home of the Lipazzan horse breed and is famous for its training and performances with these magnificent horses.  Unfortunately, the horses were "on holiday" in July and August just like the people, so there were no performances during our visit.  Instead, we took the stable tour and were able to see a few horses in their stalls, the training facilities, and the beautiful performance hall.  Most of the horses were actually away from Vienna at a farm in the country where they could relax and run free for a few weeks.

To learn more about the school, click here on Spanish Riding School.  There are nice photos in the album associated with this post.

Danube River Cruise

We spent a really nice half day on an outing to cruise down the Danube from Durnstein to a small town closer to Vienna.  The river boat moved steadily but easily along the river and presented a slow and steady change of scenery the entire time.  With one stop at Spitz to lose some passengers and take on others, the entire cruise lasted about 2 hours on the river.

The sun was hot on the open deck, so we quickly moved to the covered part toward the bow of the boat.  That was also the cafe, so we enjoyed some liquid refreshment and later a snack as we watched the river bank slide past.  Part of the time it was just beautiful countryside, and part of the time very quaint and unique villages.  The photos on the Photo Album section for this post show the many towns and scenes along this trip.

Linda shared a table with a very nice Austrian woman who was cruising with her husband for the day, cruising down to Spitz for lunch, then cruising back to their starting point.  What a nice way to spend a day!  

Durnstein was a really nice village where we started, and there are a lot of nice photos from our start there.  This is a really good album to be sure and peruse.

From the famous song we had the impression that the Danube would be a fabulous blue color.  From the photos you will see that it was actually quite a muddy color for our cruise.  Likewise in Budapest the Danube was muddy as well.  We asked our tour director and he said the river is usually somewhat muddy colored, and more so now because of the recent rains.  His explanation for the "Blue Danube" mystique is that the song is about being in love and when you are in love everything looks blue!  Maybe that's it, who knows for sure.  But, I will never think of it as the Blue Danube again.

The Opera House

One of the most spectacular buildings in Vienna is the Opera House, also called the Vienna State Opera House.  It is beautiful both inside and out and sits in the center of Vienna.  The building dates from the mid-19th century.  There are no performances in August, so the stage was silent while we were there.  But we did take the public tour of the building, which was really interesting.  The tours started at a particular time and the crowd was separates by language, German, Spanish, and English.  It was very busy that day we visited and we were lucky to get a place.

Included on the tour was a peek backstage, and that was really amazing.  The stage the audience sees is only a small part of what is actually there.  The stage floor drops down in sections to the level below, allowing fast set changes.  The floor is dropped to the lower level, stage hands push everything off to the sides. The stage returns to the performance level, and new sets are pushed on from behind or the sides at that level.  There are also rails in the floor to assist and align the sets.  It is all very well designed and impressive.

The history of the building is very interesting and you can read more at The Vienna State Opera House.  There are also some very nice photos in the Photo Albums section.

Sacher Chocolate Tort

From some of our traveling companions we learned of a "must try" dessert, the Sacher Chocolate Tort.  We found the place but found the actual tort to be quite expensive.  But at the advice of our tour guide, we bought some to try at a nearby cafe and were told they are virtually the same.  We enjoyed a very nice respite with a cappuccino and a piece of tort.  Yum!