Hotel Moser Melk

... on it, turned out to be tuna. But we are learning!

Our book issue for class is getting worked out, we have 3 of our missing 4 books, just waiting for the last one, hopefully will have it soon. Thankfully it’s not a key text, just a supplemental. On Thursday we had our first Methods class. This is going to be an interesting class I think, and I already need to nail down my topic for the paper for this class. I’ ...

... the town, I was being spat upon again. Time for a quick salad and frittatensuppe (clear beef soup with strips of pancake) before hopping on a bus for Durnstein.
Durnstein's claim to fame are the ruins of a castle on the hill above the town, where Ric*************heart was apparently imprisoned in 1193 while on his way back from one of his frequent Crusades. I doubt that he was very comfy there, but he certainly had a spectacular view ...

... bus to the next town,
We had to walk about 10 minutes along the river to get to the buses that would take us to the Abbey. The Abbey is very beautiful, especially the exterior view with its location on the hill above the town. It is a working abbey so we only toured the Imperial Rooms, the library and the church. Magnificent ceiling paintings and gold leaf. Displayed were centuries old manuscripts and vestments which are still used today on special occasions ...

Our favourite place so far this trip! We hired our bikes for the day and did the bike ride from Krems which follows the Danube River and winds through little villages, vineyards and has incredible scenery and views over the valley. It was around 25km round trip and fairly eaisy going. It was an incredible day, sunny weather, bike trails the whole way and cellar doors too! It's also the middle of harvest, so ...

... but not too far inland, so from the top you get an excellent view of the river weaving through the lush green valley, wineyards and corn fields. The ruins themselves are enchanting. It was really nice to stand on the top walls and soak up the sun and the view. Also from the castle ruins you can see a corn maze down below. The maze is groomed to look like a knight on horseback, and you can see that clearly from so high above.

... back inside to the abbey library. This is really impressive and beautiful. It is still an active library - they still acquire books and important people use the library for study. They also have a collection of speech capsules, the most recent acquisition being one from the Dalai Lama on his visit here.

From the library you reach the exciting conclusion of your visit, the abbey ...

... on the Danube river. Every passenger was on deck as we left Melk to watch (for 2 hours) the most dramatic and beautiful scenery slowly float by (which included acres and acres of vineyards which nicely complimented the wine tasting event on the deck). The people on the river are fun too .. waving and doing crazy stunts!

The three star Hotel Haus Franziskus is located in Austria, Styria, on the border of Mariazell and St. Sebastian. Only a 5-8 minute pleasant walk separates us from the Basilica and the main ski lift in downtown Mariazell.

The hotel lies in wonderful mountainous surroundings and is still easy to reach by every means of transportation. They provide free parking to their guests whether they ...

... a huge Abbey on a hill that takes up half of Melk. I really liked the librarys with over 100,000 books, and it had some great views of the Danube Valley. We could even see that the river was starting to flood because it had been raining so long there.

Tonight we came back to the hotel to deal with the rain the way that the Irish do, with whiskey and cards. That worked pretty well and then we finished off the night with going to the pizza ...

The entire group took a day trip to Melk to visit the Abbey and spend some time in the small town of 5,000. We took a tour of the Abbey, sat at a cafe for a while, and just enjoyed the small gift shops and cobblestone streets. More about the Abbey later...