Grand European River Cruise

The Melk Abbey

1457

November 5, 2018

< Start at the beginning of this series: Grand European River Cruise

After our scenic cruise thru the Wachau Valley relatively early this morning, we had several hours in Melk before we left Austria and made our way to Germany. As you can see by the photo above, Melk is located where the Danube and Melk Rivers converge. The highlight of the day is visiting the renowned 900-year-old Melk Abbey – a masterpiece in Baroque brilliance!

Luckily a Viking bus was waiting to take us up the hill, and was back after our tour for those who wanted or needed a ride back. We decided to take a stairway down to the town to explore for a while before returning to the ship. You know us – we’ve got to see as much as we can!

“Melk Abbey is one of the biggest and most beautiful European Baroque ensembles. Its splendid architecture is famous worldwide and part of UNESCO’s world cultural heritage. The Baroque building situated on a rock overlooking the Danube, in the Wachau region, ranks as one of Austria’s most visited art-historical sites. Since 1089, Benedictine monks have continually been living and working in Melk Abbey. Following the rules laid down by St. Benedict, they try to translate into action the words ORA et LABORA et LEGE (pray and work and learn) by working in pastoral care and education (Melk Abbey Secondary School) as well as organizing cultural events.” – READ MORE

Although no photos were allowed inside the abbey, this website is a wonderful source if you’d like to see some gorgeous ones and read about how a young Benedict left Rome because he was “repulsed by the immorality of the city”. Over many years and through many steps (including listening with his heart) he found his way to God and helped many others to see his path. Until his death in the mid sixth century, he would write his monastic rules – which would become THE rules of the early Middle ages.

Also on that website are some great photos of the museum, the Marble Hall, the library and the abbey church. In the order of importance of the rooms, the library comes second only to the church.

Along with being absolutely beautifully decorated – “The library of the Melk abbey consists of a total of twelve rooms containing about 1,888 manuscripts, 750 incunabula (printed works before 1500), 1700 works from the 16th, 4500 from the 17th, and 18,000 from the 18th century; together with the newer books, approximately 100,000 volumes in total.”

So if the library is second only to the church, you can only imagine – or look on the website – to see how gorgeous the church is. It is simply amazing!

From the terrace there are wonderful views of the Melk River and the city of Melk.

After the tour of the abbey, we had some free time to walk the cobblestones to explore this quaint little town and enjoy a cold one at a pub with an outside table.

As we made our way back to our ship, we noticed a sandwich board for a concert (below). It’s not often that we see Mozart and Tschaikowski on the menu! Then we enjoyed a little bit of nature as we walked right along the edge of a park. After studying the map on the sign where Jim is standing below, we thought about taking a shortcut thru that nature and saving some steps, but thought against it. As it turned out the path would have come out right by our ship. I suppose the steps did us good, even though we have been getting PLENTY of them lately!