Milk and Creme

Oh my...not enough words or pictures could ever be used. It seems every day it gets better.
Today's first stop was Melk (milk), Austria where we toured the Melk Abbey and Benedictine Monastery.



The highlight of the abbey is the Abbey Church built in 1702. Of course it was beautiful but then we entered the church we were nearly speechless. Our jaws drooped and in unison we said 'oh my' or words like 'are you kidding' came to mind.

Before we saw the church though, we were given a tour of the museum with a guide who gave us a great history tour of the abbey and Saint Benedict. The museum was located along the hallway in rooms that used to be used as VIP guest rooms.


We also saw a few rooms of the abbey library.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the library which was beautifully decorated and it housed 90, 000 books dating back to the middle ages.  Now you can enjoy some pictures of the abbey church.




After enjoying the abbey we walked through the small town of Melk.  It was interesting and the stores have many kinds of apricot products since a lot of apricots are grown in this area.  We had a lively thunder storm while we were in town so we were a little wet when we got back to the ship.

We set sail at 1:30 and had a cruise through the remarkable Wachau Valley, another UNESCO world heritage site.  It was a little rainy but we got to see all the castles, vineyards, and small towns.



This afternoon we docked at Krems (creme).  We went into town and found it to not be very interesting, so we walked down to the neighboring town, Stein.  This town was much nicer and as we were walking around we ran into some people from the ship who directed us up an alley to a festival that was happening up the hill.  When we got up the hill, we saw people   dressed in typical Austrian costumes.  We stopped to watch what was happening and soon a band of musicians came and stopped right in front of us.  They started playing a Austrian beer song.  It was sooooo cool to be there for a local festival and hear that music.




Dinner was special tonight. Family style Austrian food and music and beer and....everyone had a good time. Tonight we had dining entertainment and fireworks at dark as the town celebrates the longest day of the year.








Until tomorrow, cheers!

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