November 4, 2019

The morning we arrived at our last Austrian city, Melk. We were divided into groups to tour the Melk Abbey. The Walk and Discover group is always #4, so we had the last tour. It is a lovely sunny day and we took a bus up the hill to the Abbey. This charming town has only 5000 residents. The highlight is the Abbey which starred life as a Hapsburg Palace. It has been a monastic school since the 12th century with a library that is world renowned for its extensive collection. It was reconstructed in the Baroque style in the first 40 years of the 18th century. The building has 468 rooms and 1365 windows! It contains a high school for 700 students. Mozart has performed concerts here.

Reinhold was our guide through the courtyard and the museum areas of the Abbey which highlight the history through the years. Unfortunately no photos were allowed but we later bought a small book with explanation and pictures. I put two on Facebook along with pictures I took of the outside and the views.

The whole place was just spectacular- the library contains 100,000 documents, many rare manuscripts and all the books were re-covered to look the same. The church is the most beautiful I have ever seen and I have seen hundreds.

After our visit we walked through the town and through a forest area and returned to the ship for lunch. We left this port at 1:45. We will travel next to Passau in Germany and it is fun to watch the beautiful small towns and experience the many locks along the way. I had the opportunity to have a wonderful hot stone massage followed by tea with a special apricot Austrian dessert… Just had to try that!