This morning we were in the town of Melk where we toured the Melk Abbey. This Benedictine Abbey has been a working abbey for over 900 years and currently has 23 monks living there. Most of this beautiful facility is museum now but the one fascinating piece is their library that has books that are hundreds of years old. After the abbey we walked through Melk and had a nice glass of wine and enjoyed this beautiful little town.
In the afternoon we arrived in the quaint town of Durnstein. We decided for the afternoon that we would hike up to the Durnstein Castle ruins which I will say the views were stunning and so glad we did it, but man getting up there was no fun at all! The castle is famous for having held Richard the Lionheart prisoner for offending the Austrians. The money that was paid to get him back is where the term a “Kings Ransom” came from, they say that it almost broke England and made Austria wealthy. After the slow walk down through the woods we walked around the town and were amazed how clean and cute it was. Back on the boat to head to Vienna!
