Starting later than usual, we took buses to Stift Melk (Melk Abbey), one of the great buildings of magnificent Baroque architecture. (Melk Castle 976, Monastery 1089, Baroque building 1736) We were driven to the top of the cliff, favoured location of churches and castles here. Walking through a construction site restoring the site, we assembled in the second courtyard. The guide (a young woman, very proud of Melk) gave us some history as we moved into the museum, once the guest rooms of the imperial palace of the Hapsburgs. The resemblance to the design of the Turn and Taxis palace was evident, and both of them made me think of the novels in which characters leave their rooms for someone else’s after dark – long corridors with many identical doors. The museum was well-desig
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