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Published: February 20th 2007
I thought I had read in one of the books that Melk, a small village about an hour West of Vienna, houses a monastery and a winery. We had a free day and it was a sunny one so we took advantage of it and hopped on the train to Melk. The ride was beautiful and it allowed us to see the countryside of Austria we had not seen yet. You could see the monastery from the town and it looked like it pretty much dominated the tiny village. The tour was not until 2p so we walked around the outside grounds for a while and tried to find a coffee shop. Everywhere was closed for the winter, even the park adjacent to the monastery. Oh well. We did some mini-hiking and waited for our 2p tour.
The tour of the monastery was absolutely worth the wait.. although we soon found out there was no winery.. that's actually in another village.
We learned about the differences in the Gothic and Baroque styles of architecture..and were dumbfounded at the sheer size and beauty of the main library room. It houses hundreds of handwritten manuscripts as well as a rich collection
of printed books. The monastery was actually a palace in its first life, given to a royal family by the Germans..this palace is what gave birth to Austria and Melk used to be the capital. The royal family eventually gave the palace as a gift to the monks in 1089, knowing they will take good care of the grounds.
The place is to this day an active monastery as well as a private school. (It had been a boarding school preparing boys for the monk life during the 12th century, and adapted through the years to the needs of the time). As it turns out the academic purpose of this monastery would end up being its saving grace during the ruling of Emperor Joseph II, when he decided to dissolve most monasteries and religious institutions since he was a man of science and reason vs. religion. A funny story about Mr. Joseph.. he was so adamant about saving money in Churches that he created the reusable coffin. He reasoned that once people were dead they did not need the coffin, so he came up with a wood coffin that had a trap door at the bottom, so after the
funeral services were over and the mourners left, the undertaker opens the trap door dropping the body in the ground and the empty coffin is reused during the next funeral. Pretty funny eh?
These days Stift Melk Monastery serves as an education institution to about 1,000 boys and girls.
The gem of the monastery was the church and it was by far the most exquisite church we have seen thus far.. mind you we have seen many many churches on this trip. The place was showered with gold and marble. Later we found out from our guide that the gold and marble were no where near what it looked like (there was only a think layer of gold on the statues and marbles were only used in columns and around door panels the rest were pretty much make belief)..welcome to Baroque style of architecture.
We noticed what looked like to mummies on display on either side of the church. When we asked our guide about it, she said back in the early 1900's the Pop excavated bodies of the earliest Christians..who believed to be martyrs since they were tortured and killed for their religious beliefs, and gave
them away as gifts to various churches. We can't remember the whole story.. and the actual dates but the gist of the story is here..
Overall the day trip to Melk was well worth it.. it would be much more ideal in the summer since the garden and the grounds would be open.. but it was still sweet.
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Rafik
non-member comment
i dont get it
How the hell did you get the chance to tour the world while i'm stuck in pediatrics out in the middle of nowhere aka Moreno valley, begging lil' shit heads if I can look in their ears and mouth while they spit and yack on me??? what a crazy world we live in. i wanna be a nomad sort of