Blogs from Wachau, Lower Austria, Austria, Europe

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 ... read more

The slow regional train took 1.5 hours from Vienna Westbahnhof to Melk, the start of our Wachau valley bicycle tour. Austria had a similar bike rental system as Hangzhou in China, with locked bikes parked in various areas throughout the country, for cyclists to use. It helps that we are in one of the favourite cycle ways in Europe, as the Wachau valley is but one small part of the 365km long cycle way from Passau in Austria to Bratislava in Slovakia along the Donau River. Lucky we were only doing the 41km from Melk to Krems today, not 365km! We rode on the south bank of the Donau. Before long we came across a little church built on the river bank with its dome high over the water - this is Schonbuhel. The Donau is ... read more

Melk - What an incredible town - truely just like something out of a storybook - Benedictine Monestry I have video and heaps of photos of this magnificent building that was first started around 1000bc.. People devoted the whole of their lifetimes in constructing it and sadly never got to see the end result that we get today... Totally marvelled at the precision of every line, sphere, curves etc... No modern tooling, yet perfection and meticulous workmanship that has been built to stand for many more centuries.... You note that all of these fabulous structures are perched atop of the steepest locations, great for detering invaders, but really crap for tourist access (Talk about bad forward planning - they should have given us some consideration when they started these things 1000 years ago).... Out of Melk ... read more

Thursday, 8/07 Today we had our excursion to the Melk Abbey in the Austrian countryside. We had to get up early to make it to the train station in time to catch the train at 9:45am. I was making my breakfast, and I really wanted some toast. They have REALLY good jam here, and I want to eat it all the time now. I had one slice of bread left, and it was moldy, so I had to eat some of my other stuff. When I panic-shopped the first day, I don't think I thought to check the dates of the bread. But I have been a more scrutinous shopper since. We took our regular U-bahn line to the train station, and got on a train resembling a nicer version of Amtrak. We had a "group ... read more

We had seen some of Europe’s best cities, chateaus, castles, museums, ruins, churches, parks and neighborhoods. It was time now to see the countryside. I figured, what better country to sample the countryside as beautiful Austria? When I think of Austria the first thing that comes to my mind is, “The Sound of Music” set in Salzburg and the picturesque countryside beyond. A fantastic opportunity existed at the train station - a combination ticket (ship+train+culture) for a cruise on the river Danube along the Wachau Valley. Train trip to Melk, a visit to Melk, a boat cruise down the Danube from Melk to Krems, a visit to Krems and train ride back to Vienna. It sounded great! The weather was gorgeous, a perfect day for sailing and we went to the Vienna Westbahnhof to buy our ... read more