Day 4 ~ Melk Abbey

On route to Melk, we enjoyed some beautiful scenery on the banks of the Danube River. Convents and monasteries are more common than castles in this area. Notice the crucifixes in the pink building on the right.

Just a short distance away was the former residence of a Duke.

Melk Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey above the town of Melk, Austria, on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Danube River in the Wachau Valley. The abbey was founded in 1089 when Leopold II gave one of his castles to Benedictine monks. Today's Baroque abbey was built between 1702 and 1736. (photo from Wikipedia)

Main Entrance to the abbey

Prelate's Courtyard – The building surrounding the courtyard house the classrooms for about 900 students grades 5-12.

The library of the Melk Abbey consists of a total of twelve rooms with over 100,000 volumes, some over 1000 years old. (We could not take pictures inside the abbey so the library and the church below are also from Wikipedia.)

The high point of the monastery is the very ornate church.  Some of the side alters contain relics of various saints.

Here we are overlooking the town of Melk from the Abbey.  A field of sunflowers can be seen in the left middle of the photo.
At the end of our time in Melk, we returned to our ship, River Adagio. This 418 foot-long ship has a capacity for 164 passengers with 82 cabins. The little speck at the end of the gang plank is Bonnie waving. 

By 6:00 pm, we set sail for Passau, Germany, where we will arrive mid-morning on Saturday.