We had eaten gulasch suppe and salad and torte earlier yesterday in Grein, so when we got to Melk, we were ready for more desserts. We did not get too far from our hotel before it began raining, and without umbrellas or proper rain wear, we did not want to get wet, so we popped into the gasthof next to our pension, and tried Marillen knoedel and vanilla topfen with hot chocolate and lots of whipped cream. Eating in Austria is a unique experience, and for Karen and I, evokes all sorts of memories of delicious food, especially desserts. We decided that with just a few days in Austria, we would try as many of the favourite desserts of our childhood. Today, on the boat down the Danube from Melk to Bad Durnstein, we tried Palatschinken with chocolate sauce, nuts and berries. When we get to Vienna, we will of course try the Sacher torte. I am not sure how the people here can manage with such delicious sweets, but I noticed today how active everyone was, with so many biking and hiking and strolling about. We had been cooped up in the car yesterday and sitting and eating too much with relatives in Munich, so today we resolved to get outside and enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. It was a perfect day.
We rushed to get to the boat at 8:25 for our river cruise, past Willendorf, where the 25, 000 year old Venus figure was found, past the castle of Aggstein, which was held by 'robber barons' who sent their prisoners off the rose garden cliff to their deaths as punishment, and stopped at Spitz, where we picked up a gaggle of art students on their way to Bad Durnstein. We had the ship to ourselves and some middle aged bikers until the schoolbusfull came. We passed lovely churches and castles and vineyards on every side. We disembarked at Durnstein, a lovely town with a ruined castle, where Richard the Lionheart had been imprisoned for some months after he had angered the Austrian duke at Acre and was on his way home. The legend is that his minstrel Blondel, who had been separated from Richard upon returning from the Crusades, had found him by singing his way from town to town, finally hearing Richard's voice joining him in song in Durnstein. The town has narrow streets and middle aged and Renaissance buildings and an impressive baroque church. We wandered through the narrow streets and missed walking up to the castle, so we could catch our ship back to Melk.
Melk is a Benedictine Abbey and is beautiful in a baroque sort of way. I loved the library most of all. I am trying to understand my father's love of baroque. I remember that he most appreciated Romanesque churches, after Roman and Greek architecture of course. The baroque does not quite fit my impressions of my father, and I find it hard to imagine him moving from the Batschka to Vienna and Graz, and falling in love with the Austrian baroque. I will have to press him further about this. I try to understand the excessiveness of the style as a reflection of the efforts of the Catholic church to reengage its flock after the schism of the reformation. Did the church hope that those who had strayed would be attracted by excess? It must have worked for them. It is interesting that the churches in Ecuador are all efforts at Spanish baroque and are equally excessive and were in fact successful in converting most of the inhabitants, but certainly there were other factors involved.
The vegetable garden and the roses and the linden trees around the monastery were more attractive to me. There was a 'belvedere' with entertaining frescoes of what appeared to be representative of exotic new worlds with very inaccurate drawings of animals and indigenous inhabitants, but quite delightful and entertaining. Most of all, it was a peaceful place for a coffee and planning for the next part of our trip.
We drove along the Danube to the towns we had passed on the boat, and stopped further along at Stein, where we visited three churches and the statue memorializing the plague (the 'pestsaule'). Almost every town built a column or statue of thanks after surviving the plague. Krems was a short distance away, with a lovely pedestrian-only 'landstrasse' lined with Renaissance houses, a massive entrance tower, and a Gothic cathedral overflowing with baroque ornamentation.
We are taking only country roads to avoid tolls on the autobahn. There are many road works and detours, and we were taking far too long to get to Vienna. We entered through the Wienerwald, and when Karen's iPad lost its map and Tara's GPS stopped working, we entered Vienna blind, and were laughing when we found ourselves immediately in front of our hotel in the centre of the city. We found a restaurant nearby where every table was taken, which is always a good sign. Karen and I indulged ourselves with weinerschnitzel while poor Tara's vegetarian fare was a huge disappointment. I am not sure one can be vegetarian in Austria.
We rushed to get to the boat at 8:25 for our river cruise, past Willendorf, where the 25, 000 year old Venus figure was found, past the castle of Aggstein, which was held by 'robber barons' who sent their prisoners off the rose garden cliff to their deaths as punishment, and stopped at Spitz, where we picked up a gaggle of art students on their way to Bad Durnstein. We had the ship to ourselves and some middle aged bikers until the schoolbusfull came. We passed lovely churches and castles and vineyards on every side. We disembarked at Durnstein, a lovely town with a ruined castle, where Richard the Lionheart had been imprisoned for some months after he had angered the Austrian duke at Acre and was on his way home. The legend is that his minstrel Blondel, who had been separated from Richard upon returning from the Crusades, had found him by singing his way from town to town, finally hearing Richard's voice joining him in song in Durnstein. The town has narrow streets and middle aged and Renaissance buildings and an impressive baroque church. We wandered through the narrow streets and missed walking up to the castle, so we could catch our ship back to Melk.
Melk is a Benedictine Abbey and is beautiful in a baroque sort of way. I loved the library most of all. I am trying to understand my father's love of baroque. I remember that he most appreciated Romanesque churches, after Roman and Greek architecture of course. The baroque does not quite fit my impressions of my father, and I find it hard to imagine him moving from the Batschka to Vienna and Graz, and falling in love with the Austrian baroque. I will have to press him further about this. I try to understand the excessiveness of the style as a reflection of the efforts of the Catholic church to reengage its flock after the schism of the reformation. Did the church hope that those who had strayed would be attracted by excess? It must have worked for them. It is interesting that the churches in Ecuador are all efforts at Spanish baroque and are equally excessive and were in fact successful in converting most of the inhabitants, but certainly there were other factors involved.
The vegetable garden and the roses and the linden trees around the monastery were more attractive to me. There was a 'belvedere' with entertaining frescoes of what appeared to be representative of exotic new worlds with very inaccurate drawings of animals and indigenous inhabitants, but quite delightful and entertaining. Most of all, it was a peaceful place for a coffee and planning for the next part of our trip.
We drove along the Danube to the towns we had passed on the boat, and stopped further along at Stein, where we visited three churches and the statue memorializing the plague (the 'pestsaule'). Almost every town built a column or statue of thanks after surviving the plague. Krems was a short distance away, with a lovely pedestrian-only 'landstrasse' lined with Renaissance houses, a massive entrance tower, and a Gothic cathedral overflowing with baroque ornamentation.
We are taking only country roads to avoid tolls on the autobahn. There are many road works and detours, and we were taking far too long to get to Vienna. We entered through the Wienerwald, and when Karen's iPad lost its map and Tara's GPS stopped working, we entered Vienna blind, and were laughing when we found ourselves immediately in front of our hotel in the centre of the city. We found a restaurant nearby where every table was taken, which is always a good sign. Karen and I indulged ourselves with weinerschnitzel while poor Tara's vegetarian fare was a huge disappointment. I am not sure one can be vegetarian in Austria.
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