On The Move!!: Tuesday Part One

Hoping that everyone who has already seen yesterday's post - looks again - it took a long time to load the pictures - so more were added this morning. The internet here is very slow. We woke up in Melk today. After breakfast - we went to the top of the hill to tour the Benediktiner Stift (aka Melk Abbey). Melk has been an important spiritual and cultural center in Austria for over 1000 years. Once the residence of the ruling Babenberg family - it became a Benedictine monastary in 1089 founded by Leopold II. For more that 900 years - monks have lived and worked in Stift Melk following the rules laid down by St. Benedict. The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The Benedictine moniks are active in the parishes, the school (which has exchange students from as far as Minnesota), the local economy, culture and tourism. The tour of the Abbey was interesting- the library quite amazing - being one of the largest in Austria with 100,000 books dating back centuries and in over 15 different languages. No photos were allowed in the library - but believe me when I say it was amazing. The church was also quite spectacular. After touring the abbey - we walked back to the ship through town (about 1-2 blocks long) and were treated to a traditional Austrian lunch. They had 3 kinds of sausages, fried chicken (who knew that fried chicken was traditional Austrian food), ham infused with cheese (tasted kind of like hot bologna), minestrone soup (which was like a meld of chicken noodle and vegetable), pretzels, potato salad, tomatoes, and pepperonis. It was served with free Austrian beer (which Andy much enjoyed). After lunch we set sail for Durnstein (which I will cover in the next post after loading more pictures).