I started the day off hearing music coming thru my hotel window and when I went outside that festival was still going on! They had the town band playing in the town square. You can’t get any more European than that!
I then went and took a guided tour thru the Melk Abbey. WOW is all I can say. That place is beautiful inside and out. The church is over the top. The library has 10,000 books some as old as 1,000 years! They didn’t let you take pics on the inside and I didn’t want to bore you with more pics of the outside but it is aesthetically amazing.
Well you know how I’ve said some of my days remind me of movies. Well today was Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I found out at breakfast that my hotel gives me a free boat cruise from Melk to Spitz which is about half way along the Wachau valley portion of the Danube. But I still wanted to bike part of it so I rented a bike and took it on the boat with me and then rode the bike from Spitz to Krems (about 12 miles). Since it was late in the day when I finished at Krems I took the bus back to Melk. So it was a Boat, Bike and Bus day (almost like the movie!).
The boat ride was nice (hey who wouldn’t take a free Danube River Cruise – I even included a pic of the boat!) but the highlight of the day was the bike ride. A lot of the time you were biking along the beautiful Danube thru quaint little towns, castles everywhere and lots and lots of vineyards. I stopped off in both Durnstein and Krems and spent a little time in each village since they were so cute.
I included lots of pics along the way but like always it can’t really do it justice. I wanted a pic of me biking thru the vineyards but no one was around so all you got was my bike! Lol
Well that’s it for today and you all get a break tomorrow… no email (OK now stop all that clapping and cheering… Geez!) It’s supposed to be a little rainy and so I thought I’d sleep in, do some laundry and catch up on some rest (as well as give these 60 year old knees a chance to recuperate from the bike ride!)
My next email will be from the town of Sopron in Hungary. Don’t worry, I’m not done with Austria yet. In about 10 days I’ll circle back to the crown jewel of Austria… Vienna.
Happy Sunday to all!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 