The Danube Valley

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We made our first trip Tuesday to the Danube Valley. It began with a boat ride along the Blue Danube River, which, surprisingly enough was not blue. I heard it normally is but because of the amount of rainfall it was just an ugly brown : ( The boat took us to the medieval village of Durnstein where we hiked up to twelfth-century castle ruins that overlook the Danube. I must say it was a pretty intense hike leaving me quite parched when I finally made it back down to the bottom.

After we hiked up the mountain (well…what I would call a mountain, but considering the Swiss Alps are nearby I don’t think anyone else would) we went to have lunch in Gottweig. As the buses were driving along I looked up on this hill and saw an enormous castle of some sorts. I thought to myself “It’s amazing that Austria just has completely random castles all over the place.” And as it turned out that was where we were eating. But it wasn’t a castle; it was an eleventh-century Benedictine Monastery.

I learned during lunch that the Austrians just don’t drink like the Americans…or like me anyway. I drink a lot when I eat meals; most people that have ever eaten with me know that going through three glasses of whatever is no problem for me. But in Austria people just don’t do this because there’s not the beautiful option of free refills (and they drink alcohol with everything so I guess that causes most people to be a bit more temperate). But after climbing a mountain all I wanted was a huge glass of water or some sort of cold beverage to attempt to hydrate myself. They did give us two little pitchers of water for the ten people at my table but it just didn’t go that far. When they came around to order drinks my table had just been talking about how supposedly the area had amazing white wine and I thought to myself “I can’t just not order it…because if it’s amazing then I have to try it.” So I did. And while it was good, it did nothing to hydrate me in the least, and I sat drooling at the table across from me where people had glasses of water and Diet Coke (or Coca-Cola Light as it is called here). Needless to say I learned my lesson; if I am ever in a situation where I am parched Diet Coke will serve me much better than wine…or better yet, a glass of water!

After lunch we stayed and had mass in the monastery which was amazing. All the churches here are gorgeous and have so much history to them. It blows my mind to think about how mass has been going on in that church since the eleventh-century. In all of the churches I have seen so far it is so evident how important the mass was to people centuries ago because of the way their churches were constructed and what was put into them. European churches are magnificent works of art that contain some of the greatest artwork of all time. They’re adorned in gold with mosaics, frescos and paintings of all kinds. It’s amazing to see how much work was put forth to make these churches so much more than buildings, but truly houses of God.

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Comments

[Kevin Lennon]

great
good looking blog Jenny great information mom and i both loved it dad

[Lexy]

SUPREME JEALOUSY
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