The Wachau Valley and Durnstein

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Tom and I wanted to walk around the town of Melk after touring the Abbey so rather than getting back on the bus we headed towards the sign that said "altstadt" which means old town in English. Down, down, down the roughly hewn rock stairs we went. Our guides promised it would be easy to get back to the ship on our own. When we were at the top of the Abbey we were shown the path to take and which bridge to cross to get back. She told us there would be yellow tiles to follow and stay to the right. The tiles would eventually be blue but just keep to the right.....Remember she said "right is right and left is lost." As we headed down towards old town within the cobbled streets were yellow glass tiles. Once in town on the right they became blue. It was so easy to follow that even my bad sense of direction didn't kick in. We needed to be back on the ship no later than 1:15 to set sail at 1:30. we got back in time for 12:30 lunch and we're ready on the Sun Deck when the ship pushed away from the dock,

Over the loud speaker our cruise director Lee called all passengers to the Sun Deck to view the beautiful Wachau Valley on our way to the tiny town of Durnstein that lay and the end of the Valley. Camera and phone in hand it didn't take long for castles and long forgotten Monestaries to appear high up on mountain crags or wonderful little towns with their colorful houses, enchanting single spire churches and pristine roadways to appear by the shores. Behind the towns were mountains and forests as far as the eye could see all covered by a luscious green carpet of grass. The cruise director was on a microphone pointing out upcoming things to note, the only problem was I was feeling like a ping pong ball...."On your left is the beautiful town of Spitz and don't miss the old castle on the top of the mountain on your right." "Next on your left are the castle ruins of blah blah blah and on your right is an old Monastary purchased by yadda yadda yadda of Sweden. I couldn't keep up with the scenery changes and to make matters worse it was really windy and very hard to keep the camera or IPhone still. There were so many amazing little hamlets laced along the shore. Tom was thrilled we passed at least one clay tennis court. Castle after castle, ruin after ruin. Beautifus mountains with vineyards terraced into them. Monestaries and old Abbeys........overwhelming I wanted to yell STOP!!!! this cannot be real, when will this fairy tale end?? I can't take all this happiness in shangrala, you're killing me.....but I just kept snapping away hoping I'd eventually get one or two great shots. The ship continued its path down the curvy Danube, around every turn as something even more amazing than the last. We finally saw Durnstein in the distance.

Such a sweet little town. It really had it all, an old Abbey still in use with its sky blue painted church spire. Old stone buildings covered in ivy. Vineyards that ran from the shore of the Danube up to the castle ruins high above the town. Now the castle ruins carry quite the story. It seems that during the crusades Richard the Lion Heart somehow insulted the Austrian monarchy. He went into hiding and was trying to find his way back to England. He would quietly sneak through towns as he made his way home. His eventual mistake was using British coins to pay for something and he was immediately arrested and imprisoned high above the town in the castle dungeon. It was Maria Teresa Queen of Austria and Mother of Marie Antoinette who sentenced Richard to 11 years in prison....if only they had used Euros back then, sigh.

This has been a long day; Melk, Wachau Valley and now we're in Durnstein. We feel like we have to go walk around. It got cuter. The town was probably only 5 blocks wide by 5 blocks long, the houses looked like Heidi lives there and there was a wedding going on in the Abbey.

That was it complete sensory overload. I don't even feel I know what is real anymore, except this is all real and it's hard to comprehend that this is the same world in which I live (only several thousand miles to the West.) I'm exhausted and tomorrow we go to Vienna. I supposed we'll be adding superbly played classical music to the fairy tale now.

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Photos

Doorway in Durnstein
Check out the date on the lower left corner 1437.