After breakfast, we visited the abbey at Melk, a 900-year-old Benedictine monastery featuring Austria’s finest Italian baroque architecture.
The abbey was founded in 1089 when Leopold II, Margrave of Austria gave one of his castles to Benedictine monks from Lambach Abbey. A monastic school, the Stiftsgymnasium Melk, was founded in the 12th century, and the monastic library soon became renowned for its extensive manuscript collection. The monastery's scriptorium was also a major site for the production of manuscripts. In the 15th century the abbey became the centre of the Melk Reform movement which reinvigorated the monastic life of Austria and Southern Germany.
Today's impressive Baroque abbey was built between 1702 and 1736 to designs by Jakob Prandtauer. Particularly noteworthy is the abbey church with frescos by Johann Michael Rottmayr and the impressive library with countless medieval manuscripts, including a famed collection of musical manuscripts and frescos by Paul Troger.
Due to its fame and academic stature, Melk managed to escape dissolution under Emperor Joseph II when many other Austrian abbeys were seized and dissolved between 1780 and 1790. The abbey managed to survive other threats to its existence during the Napoleonic Wars, and also in the period following the Nazi Anschluss that took control of Austria in 1938, when the school and a large part of the abbey were confiscated by the state.
The school was returned to the abbey after the Second World War and now caters for nearly 900 pupils of both sexes.
Since 1625 the abbey has been a member of the Austrian Congregation, now within the Benedictine Confederation.
In his well-known novel The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco named one of the protagonists "Adson von Melk" as a tribute to the abbey and its famous library.
View of the town and the Danube from the Abbey
The beautiful church
It sure was cold...notice the snow
Charlie found his cat...
After lunch, we cruised through the spectacular Wachau Valley. Unfortunately, it wasn't very spectacular!!!! The weather was terrible. temp was high 20s and very windy!
At about 4PM we arrived in Krems...we decided that that we not get off the ship...it was just too cold!!! Been checking the weather channel...tomorrow in Vienna is supposed to be a high of 34 and SNOW...I guess we sure picked the wrong time for this cruise!
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