Melk and Arrive in Vienna - 5/19/2025
- sridgway38
- May 18
- 3 min read
Updated: May 20
This morning we decided to skip our originally planned power walk in Melk for a visit to the Melk Abbey, which we're so glad we did. The description of the Abbey from the Avalon website didn't wound like much but it was actually very beautiful.
We were docked in Melk along a waterfront walking path that seemed quite busy so we took a bit of a walk to see what we could see.
We took a short bus ride up to the abbey because it was on the top of a tall hill. We met our Abbey guide at the courtyard of the Abbey.
We had a lovely young woman who was our guide. She is employed by the monks at the Abbey and she took us through the museum wing of the abbey. No photos are allowed inside of any part of the Abbey. She told us that there are currently 22 monks living at the abbey ranging in age from 95 to 22. We went through what used to be the Imperial residence which has now been turned into a series of museum rooms which depict important time periods of the abbey. After we exited the museum we got some beautiful views of the valley below.
We then entered the linrary of the abbey and it was incredible, we had access to only one of many floors, and it had floor to ceiling shelves of books that were all bound in similar decorative covers and beautifule fresco cielings. There was a spiral staircase that could take up to the upper and lower floors of the library but we weren't allowed there. We next entered the chapel which was equally stunning but we were not allowed to take pictures in any of the areas of the inside of the abbey. The chapel had gorgeous baroque decorations, lots of gold and beautiful ceilings as well. When we exited the church we went into the shop and purchased some photos.
After we exited the shop we were dumped into another courtyard and then made our way back to the busses.
We headed back to the ship for lunch and some scenic sailing along the Danube on our way to Vienna.
When we got docked in Vienna we had a very early dinner because many people on the ship were heading to an evening concert in Vienna but we decided to take a quick walk along the waterfront to get some pictures and then sit on the sky deck and watch the sun set over Vienna.
On our way back to the ship we saw the crew gathering on the back crew deck and as we made our way into the ship we saw one of the guys sneaking in a quarter keg. They have the night off since we are docked overnight. Our room steward Mihaela confirmed the next morning that they had in fact had a little party. They work awfully hard, they deserve some downtime!
Conrad decided to take a run up to the top of the ship after dark to get some nighttime pictures of Vienna as well.
Tomorrow we will go into the old city in Vienna for a tour.