Melk Abbey, The Danube and Vienna

Another early morning, and another delightful breakfast! I’m starting to get used to these good European breakfasts. I hope this is a trend I can continue at home. We ate, loaded up and headed out. This time we rode on the back row of the bus, which I affectionately christened “Kev’s Rear Axle Lounge”. We toured the abbey at Melk, which was insanely beautiful. The library holds over 130,000 books. There are thousands more in the donations building.

It started raining as we boarded a boat for a two hour cruise down the Danube River. Our bus driver went ahead with our stuff while we leisurely rode the river. There were old castles that once belonged to robber barons everywhere you looked. Some looked to be in quite good shape. Others, not so much. After the cruise, we made it to Vienna and took a brief walk with Gerhard, a local guide and proprietor of the Third Man Museum. We oriented ourselves to the city and saw the main church square. We found a restaurant that wasn’t too busy and enjoyed a nice dinner of fresh bread with herbed butter, beef goulash for me and fried minced veal for Melissa. Then we walked it off during the mile-long trek back to the hotel. Since it was the fourth of July, we celebrated our independence by having German beer at an Irish Pub in Austria. God bless America!