Sunday 17th September
Sunday morning sees us floating down the Danube through the Wachau Valley in Austria, a beautifully scenic part of the world. Here terraced vineyards make their way up the hillsides as they have done for many centuries. The gloomy weather has stayed with us, light rain and grey skies, low cloud reaches fingers of mist down into the landscape, creeping along the valleys. The river reflects the grey above a steely ribbon snaking away in front of us. This area again is a region of legend, castles once mighty sit crumbling on hillsides, below them now prosperous little communities of cuckoo clock houses nestle beneath their green onion shaped church spires.
Today being Sunday, we are going to church, in fact an Abbey, with real monks.
The Abbey in question is Melk Abbey a huge structure, once a castle, then donated by some long gone prince who ran out of heirs and to the church to use as a monastery in 1059, then finally becoming an Abbey in the twelfth century. I asked myself what is the difference between a monastery and an Abbey, apparently an Abbey is just a grown up monastery. A monastery is a place where monks lead a monastic life, an Abbey has a leader an Abbot or Abbess and usually is occupied by a religious order e.g the Benedictine order, like the Melk Abbey. Here endeth the lesson.
We leave around 9.30am and drive through the extremely narrow streets of this little vineyard town Rossatz, back along stone walled lined roads with raised vineyards that follow the Danube, retracing our river steps by road. In about Thirty minutes we reach Melk and the Abbey, today the Abbey contains a museum and a secondary school, plus a famous old library. The surrounding gardens are formal with conical topiary and trees pruned so that their canopy forms umbrellas above your head. The ships umbrellas are put to good use as the rain comes down not heavily but steadily upon our heads. It is a guided tour, the Abbey is most famous for the museum of ancient religious relics, jewelled chalices and crosses, hand woven religious garb worn by bishops and abbots at ceremonial events. Bibles and books hand painted by the monks etc. etc. the scale of the place is huge, the decorations elaborate to say the least. Murals cover the ceilings not leaving a square centimetre/inch unpainted. Elaborate faux marble stone work is everywhere. We make our way around the exhibits mainly religious artefacts, there is even a version of a safe, one key opens fourteen brass barrel locks that secure a medieval document/valuables chest. We make our way out onto a viewing platform that over looks the surrounding area,
then into the library, a huge grand space stocked with books and apparently is well known as a repository for a huge store of medieval documents, again the elaborately mural painted ceilings. In an alcove sits an original atlas globe, the type that sits on a stand and you can spin around. Australia didn’t exist when this was decorated and California was an island. A similar globe sold for auction at Christies recently for EUR$240,000.00 or Aus$350,000 or US$256,000. The grand finale is the chapel attached to the abbey this is more akin to the the inside of a cathedral not as high and decorated in a baroque style that talks of extreme riches. Gold is everywhere, around the columns supporting the ceilings, statues and adornments above the altar. Not any part of the multiple arched ceilings is unpainted with a mural telling one religious story or another. The absolute wealth required to build this place would be astounding today, what did it cost then in 1702 when the building was rebuilt in the baroque style. How many lives where lost building it, how many people worked for nothing living in poverty to support it? I must say I am conflicted by the beauty and craftsmen ship, the sheer artistic value that is beyond doubt and value but the human cost in the name of a mystical superior being?
We exit via an ornate spiral staircase that if you look over the bannister, reflects the staircase above from a mirror below, the mirror tricking your eye into believing the staircase descends into infinity. Then through the obligatory gift shop and out into the gardens, we have about twenty minutes to look around, pathways lead to hidden viewing spots or into the woods.
Whimsical artworks are scattered around, like crows dressed as priests or knights.
There is a beautiful summer house at the bottom of the garden now tea rooms and small concert venue, again painted in the baroque style.
Our time comes to and end at the Melk Abbey, also famous for a book by Umberto Eco and movie that featured Shaun Connery “The Name of The Rose” a murder mystery I am told. We wind our way back to the ship for lunch then cast off for our next stop Tulln where we depart at 6.30pm for a trip into Vienna for a chamber concert.
Thankfully we have a little time to relax before the concert tonight in downtown Vienna, this end of the trip will be busy sightseeing and preparing to leave the ship in Budapest.
Time comes to depart, our two coaches are waiting for us and the other guests who decided to take in this experience. The rain has stopped but it is still cool, fortunately we don’t have to walk far before we are on our way into Vienna about an hour away. As we depart we can see the River Duchess leave too, she will sail down to her docking point on the Danube also downtown, there to spend the night.
When we are in the city we are shown the city by night, there are some pretty impressive buildings here all lit up, it will interesting to see them in the daylight tomorrow. We arrive at our concert venue, a private building that has a room acoustically perfect for chamber music, on our arrival we are given a program, then shown into the room. The room is almost covered in wood panelling, the high ceiling ornately decorated with carved wooden rosettes and intricate leaf patterns.
Carved figures support the balcony above that lines the three sides of the room above us looking down on the stage. The stage is set with the musicians chairs and sheet music stands, a large double base leans on its side to our right.
The musicians arrive, formally dressed, four young ladies, five young men and one older gentlemen. The ten piece chamber orchestra consists of a piano player, three violinists, three in woodwind section, a double base player, a cellist and a horn player. The music begins with a selection of Mozart. There are two small operatic performances by a young couple with superb voices, the rooms acoustics handling the sound wonderfully with no amplification. We are treated to a selection of Johann Strauss junior including two waltzes that are danced by two couples, the ladies with red dresses flowing and twirling as they move around the stage, the gentlemen heads held high backs arched, twirl effortlessly as the lead them. The music finishes with a rendition of “The Blue Danube” and why wouldn’t it this is where we are in Vienna, the cultural centre of Europe listening to classical music, truly a wonderful and magical experience.
Meanwhile the River Duchess has moved downstream to dock about fifteen minutes away along the river in downtown Vienna. We board the bus and return to her and our beds. Forecast for tomorrow is a sunny day let’s hope so.