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Published: September 9th 2014
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Flag twirlers in Melk
This was part of the Melk Fest, a three-day event apparently put on in celebration of the construction of a new flood wall It is early morning in Klosterneuberg, a small town in the floodplain with large abbey above. This was briefly the capital city of the Babenbergs about 1000 years ago after they picked up stakes in Melk (where they also left an abbey) and before they made a longer-lasting capital city in Vienna. The Klosterneuberg Abbey is celebrating the 900th anniversary of its founding this year, although the current building is a Baroque reconstruction, much newer, and there was a Roman fort on the site long before 1114, much older. Here we are less than 10 miles from the center of Vienna, and we'll head there this morning for three days off of the bikes and some city time.
We were rewarded for persistence through bad weather at the beginning with three beautiful days for riding along the Danube. A ittle morning mist and clouds, followed by sunshine, but warm, not hot temperatures. Two moderately long days (Grein to Melk and Krems to Klosterneuberg) with smooth riding along the river bank or on country roads, with a moderately short day (Melk to Krems) of slowly poking through the quaint towns and wine and fruit orchards of the Wachau Valley in between.
The Wachau Valley day was Sunday, and the roads and trails were full of day cyclists (it's an easy train ride there from Vienna) and the larger towns packed with tourists.
In Melk our small hotel was just a few houses on the cobblestoned street away from the main square where there was a weekend-long town festival undeway. Someone at the tourist information office told me that the purpose of this fest was to celebrate the new flood wall just completed along the Mlek River, tributary to the Danube. We from Mount Vernon know how important these things are, and I hope that our city provides an equal level of recognition when our flood wall is finished this fall. We sat at a table in the square where good street food and beer could be had and from where we enjoyed classical music and aria sung by some famous tenor from the large stage that had been set up for the occasion. The evening also featured an appearance by Ursula Strauss who is an Austrian TV and movie star, born and bred in Melk. She chatted a lot with the MC to much laughter and applause from the appreciative
crowd. Then she apparently recited poetry. Not knowing the language, it was hard to know exactly what was happening, but everyone was having fun.
The highlight, and surprise, of the evening, though, was a group of apparently local people, dressed in traditional outfits, who twirled large flags to music. It was a lot of fun to watch and obviously very difficult for them to do, the flags being at least six or eight feet square and unwieldy.
The Wachau is where people go to taste the Austrian wines, but we waited for Kems to do that where we tried two whites and two reds along with good Austrian food (several kinds of smoked meats and sausage, sauerkraut and knodl, i.e. dumplings) in a local restaurant. Like the beer, the wines are quite enjoyable here, but we won't be seeking them out back home. We plan to try more wines at one of the Heuringen (wine gardens) in Vienna.
Sometimes riding along I think about all the people who've traveled this way: perhaps the earliest humans (and maybe Neanderthals) coming from Africa, Stone Age people, Romans, Huns and Magyars, Crusaders, passengers on the Orient Express, and four of
my own great-grandparents headed (separately) the oppisite direction from us towards Hamburg and ships to America. Empress Maria Theresa and her husband stopped at the Melk Abbey, soon after its own Baroque reconstruction, on their way from Prague to Vienna. So did we, although travelling much differently and in a very diiferent time. We hope they enjoyed the trip as much as we have been enjoying ours.
Kit
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Troy
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This looks like a cycling journey I'm going to have to take myself at some point. I visited Austria years ago with my family what I really remember of that trip is my parents trying to corral and manage three (at the time) unruly boys. I went again after high school but stayed in Innsbruck & Salzburg. I love the bicycle tube vending machine. The picture of the pear tree reminded me I must head to your place to pick some pears & plums.