Month: December 2023

If you are journeying downstream (east) on the Danube, you will encounter Melk Abbey at the western entrance to the Wachau Valley. If you are traveling upstream, as we were, Melk Abbey is the last outpost in the Wachau Valley and marks the transition to the Nibelungengau, another scenic section of the Danube which, together with the Wachau, forms the Wachau-Nibelungengau tourism region. If “Nibelungengau” sounds familiar to fans of Wagnerian opera, it’s because the area was a setting for some of the action in the great German medieval epic of the Nibelungenlied. A word of caution: if you’re a fan of Wagnerian opera, be warned that the plot of the Ring cycle is very different from the German medieval epic. The Nibelungenlied was originally written in Middle High German around 1200 but is based on events of the 5th century CE involving the German kingdom of Burgundy and the Huns, whereas Wagner took his inspiration primarily from Norse mythology. The author of the epic poem Nibelungenlied is unknown, but is thought to have been from the region of Passau, a German city higher up on the Danube where the Monarch Queen would dock the next day. Unlike the Wagnerian Ring cycle, the Nibelungenlied poem does not envisage the end of the world. But there is plenty of sex, blood and gore in it nonetheless.

As it flows east from Passau, which is on the border of Austria and Germany, the Danube takes a turn to the northeast when it reaches the Wachau Valley. The town of Melk lies on the south bank of the Danube just as it starts to make that northeast turn, and Melk Abbey is on a rocky outcrop high above, overlooking the river. It is a striking setting.

Austria began as a defensive zone or “mark” intended to provide a bulwark against the ravages of the Magyars, who began their incursions in the late 9th century CE, paralleling (and hastening) the disintegration of the empire of Charlemagne. A series of fortified centers were built which offered protection to the local population, which in turn had to support the fortress. Melk was one such fortress, and for a time the most important, after Leopold I (r. 976-984), first of the Babenbergs, made it his headquarters in 984 and likely brought in a group of priests (termed “canons regular”) to provide spiritual guidance and jump-start the economy. The Babenbergs later moved east, eventually making their capital at Vienna. But in the meantime Melk became a spiritual center as well as a political and economic center.

In 1012 an Irish monk named Colman (Koloman in German) went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. To get there he took a route similar to that which Richard I the Lion-Hearted used in trying to return from the Holy Land a couple of centuries later, and met an even worse fate. Colman was mistaken for a spy at Stockerau and hanged. But following his death, reports of miracles associated with his burial site began to be reported, and the local population, perhaps in remorse for his unjust execution, began to venerate his remains. Getting wind of this, so to speak, in 1014 Henry I (r. 994-1018), Leopold I’s successor as Margrave of Austria, had Colman’s remains transferred to Melk, so that he could have a saint who would sanctify his fortress and the Austrian mark. Koloman did indeed become the patron saint of Austria, for a while; Melk became a center of his saintly cult, and its religious community continued to grow in importance from then on, aided and abetted by donations of religious relics from the Babenbergs. The next Margrave of Austria, Adalbert I (r. 1018-1055), donated a splinter supposedly from the Cross of Christ, which was set in a matrix of precious stones and is now known as the Melk Cross. The actual foundation of Melk Abbey took place in 1089, in the reign of Margrave Leopold II (1075-1095), who donated the land for the monastery.

Over the following centuries, as the Babenbergs became Dukes of Austria and then were replaced by the Habsburgs, Melk became one of the richest and most renowned monasteries in Europe. I first encountered mention of it in Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, which was made into a film starring Sean Connery. Published in 1980, the novel has as one of its two main protagonists Adso of Melk, who accompanies a scholar named William of Baskerville (played by Sean Connery in the movie) in a quest to solve a series of murders in an Italian monastery early in the 14th century. William and Adso solve the murders, but in the end the monastery burns down and with it its magnificent library, destroying scores of precious and irreplaceable documents from antiquity. The denouement bears an eerie parallel to the fate of Melk Abbey, where the library burned down in 1297 and many important documents were lost. Unlike the fictional Italian monastery, however, Melk recovered and went on to instigate a major religious reform movement in the 15th century. The Melk Reform movement greatly reinvigorated monastic life in Austria and southern Germany, and perhaps as a result the Catholic Church in those areas was better prepared to resist and reverse the spread of Protestantism in the 16th century. In any case, Melk Abbey survived the travails of the Reformation, as well as the Thirty Years’ War (1718-1748) and the Turkish wars which followed, and managed to prosper.

Nevertheless, its physical condition had by the end of the 17th century so deteriorated that a great deal of reconstruction and rebuilding was needed. Between 1702 and 1736 such a renewal took place under the auspices of an extremely energetic and able abbot, Berthold Dietmayr, and a talented architect, Jakob Prandtauer. This was now the Baroque era, and Melk Abbey as we see it today is a legacy of that period. It is considered one of the finest achievements of that era. Unfortunately, in 1738 another huge fire destroyed much of the new work, but it was redone in the succeeding years and in fact one of the jewels of the abbey, the Baroque Garden Pavilion, was created during this period.

Along with the reconstruction, Melk Abbey became a center of intellectual activity, especially during the time of Joseph II, when the ideas of the Enlightenment became the guiding light of the ruling regime. But this era also brought new difficulties. In an orgy of centralization the government required all theological instruction to be conducted in the main seminary in Vienna and closed Melk’s theological seminary. New “commender abbots” and other staff appointed by the emperor ran roughshod over the abbey’s traditions. Josephinian parish reforms resulted in the assignment of many new parishes to Melk, which brought new financial burdens which the abbey was not equipped to cope with, so it fell into debt.

Despite all these challenges, Melk Abbey survived the era of Joseph II. It also survived the Napoleonic wars, the end of serfdom and the manorial system (from which it derived its income) in the 19th century. Even after the breakup of the Habsburg Empire following World War I, when the abbey lost its estates in Hungary and other resources, it managed to muddle through by expedients such as selling its Gutenberg Bible. It even managed to install modern plumbing and electricity during that period.

But the advent of National Socialism in 1938 brought more serious threats to its existence. The Nazis confiscated the monastery school and most of the facilities, leaving only a small part of the complex to serve as an abbey. They drafted the able-bodied monks into the army and threatened to dissolve the monastery altogether. The defeat of Nazi Germany removed this shadow, and in the aftermath the abbey escaped serious damage from the occupying armies, although the troops stole and drank most of the wine in the cellars.

During in the postwar period Melk Abbey regained the school and other facilities expropriated by the Nazis, but then it encountered new challenges. A serious fire damaged the abbey in 1974, and a new reconstruction had to be undertaken. This occurred during a time when the abbey found that it was becoming increasingly less possible to survive on its traditional sources of income, agriculture and forestry, and had lost some of its remaining property to a Danube powerplant project. One solution was an increasing reliance on tourism as a source of income, and part of that was to build a new parking lot, which was of course where our Gate1 bus brought us, as well as new gardens and a restaurant.

Debarking from the bus, we descended a great staircase and embarked upon a wide straight path through a garden area, passing what used to be an orangery but is now the monastery restaurant, which can accommodate up to 600 people. The path took us to the main portal of the monastery.

Flanking the main portal are two bulky, frowning structures which tower higher than the portal itself and almost dwarf it. The one on the left, the South Bastion, was built for defense in 1650. The Thirty Years’ War had ended in 1648, but the Ottoman Empire was still a threat from the east, and in fact the bastion served its purpose in helping to stave off the Turkish onslaught of 1683. The North Bastion was added much later for symmetry.

On either side of the gate are statues of the two patron saints of the Abbey, St. Koloman on the left and St. Leopold on the right. In the 17th century the Austrians decided that having an Irishman as their patron saint was unseemly, so in 1663 they replaced St. Koloman in that capacity with one of their own, Leopold III the Good (1073-1136) of the House of Babenberg, Margrave of Austria from 1095 to 1136. But St. Koloman continued to be venerated in Melk, and his remains are interred there. The statues at the Melk portal date from 1716. The portal itself was completed in 1718.

On the roof of the portal structure are two angels, each holding a key to the Abbey, and between them, on the apex, is a golden star, copied from the coat of arms of Berthold Dietmayr, the abbot responsible for the reconstruction of the Abbey in the early 18th century.

Passing through the portal, we found ourselves in the outer courtyard, known as the Gatekeeper’s Courtyard, looking at the eastern façade of the monastery. The center section has a peaked roof, and on its apex is an oversized replica of the Melk Cross. Beneath it, in the gable, is an inscription in Latin reading “Absit gloriari nisi in crucem” (“Glory is only to be found in the Cross”). The rounded entrance archway at ground level is flanked by two obelisks, with statues of Saints Peter and Paul on pedestals next to them. The Abbey’s coat of arms, two crossed keys on a blue background, is embedded at the apex of the arch, and the archway is crowned by a balcony which is used by the abbot to greet important visitors. (He did not appear to greet us, of course.)

Entering through the archway, we found ourselves in Benedict Hall. Thus far I have neglected to mention that Melk Abbey belongs to the Order of St. Benedict. Benedict of Nursia (480-547 CE) is considered the founding father of Western (Latin Christian) monasticism. Most monasteries founded in medieval Europe followed the Benedictine rule. Benedict Hall in Melk Abbey is simple and elegant, two stories high with a balustrade running around the second floor. The hall is almost bare except for the ceiling, which features a splendid fresco depicting St. Benedict on top of a mountain with a temple and a cross. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to fit all of the fresco into my photo of the hall.

From Benedict Hall we emerged into the Prelate’s Courtyard. This is the largest courtyard and has some rather unusual features that are worth describing. Coming into the courtyard from Benedict Hall, one’s eye is first drawn to the imposing dome of the abbey church, rising above the roof on the far side of the court, then to the cornice atop the wall, which is topped with sculptures of saints and features a colorful fresco in the center. If you turn your gaze to the other walls of the courtyard, you will find that each of them has a similar cornice with its own fresco. Although the cornices with their statues are Baroque and part of the original 18th-century construction, the frescoes are modern and recent. During the restoration of the 1980s it was found that the existing Baroque frescoes had deteriorated too much to be restored, so they were replaced in 1988 by new ones created by Peter Bischoff. The original frescoes represented the four cardinal virtues, and so do the new ones: Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude. The introduction of modern art into the Baroque setting, though intended to harmonize as closely as possible, was somewhat controversial but I find that it works well enough.

The fresco on the west side of the courtyard, beneath the dome, depicts a boldly striding figure looking into a mirror, illustrating the precept “know thyself.” Two other figures appear in the scene, one reading, the other listening, and altogether they are intended to represent the virtue of Prudence.

The fresco on the north side depicts two figures pouring fire and water into an urn, with the aim of blending them into the essence of Temperance.

Fortitude, on the south side, is represented by three symbols – a column, a lion, and the figure of a human, who though sorely wounded by the lion, refuses to give up in the face of adverse circumstances.

The fresco on the east side, on the façade of Benedict Hall, represents Justice in the traditional manner, i.e. in the form of a blindfolded woman holding a sword; it also incorporates a clock, presumably to remind us that “Justice delayed is Justice denied”.

In the middle of the courtyard is a sculptured fountain. The original version, dating from 1687, depicted St. Koloman, but in 1722 the abbot gave it to the town of Melk, and today it stands on the town hall square. The fountain sculpture that stands in the courtyard today doesn’t look very much like St. Koloman, and I haven’t been able to find out what it is supposed to represent.

Our guided tour of the interior of the Abbey began (and ended) at the southwestern corner of the Prelate’s Court, where we entered the Imperial Wing, which used to contain rooms reserved for the imperial court, but now hosts a museum. Here we ascended the Imperial Staircase and found ourselves in the Imperial Corridor, which runs almost the entire length of the building; on its walls are portraits of the rulers of Austria down through the centuries, beginning with the first Babenberg margraves.

I don’t have many pictures of the interior rooms of the Abbey to show. The rooms were often dim, flash photography as usual was not allowed, and I managed to bungle the settings for low-light photos on my camera so that many of the pictures I did take did not come out well. But there were balconies in strategic locations, and from them I shot some good views of the exterior of the abbey as well as the countryside and the town of Melk.

The Melk River flows almost parallel to the Danube, and through the town of Melk for a distance before it meets with the Danube. It creates a long peninsula which is part of the town of Melk but remains heavily wooded and relatively unspoiled. On the peninsula there is an arena, the Wachau Arena Melk, which is essentially a large theater tent where cultural events are hosted, most notably the Sommerspiele Melk, a drama and music festival held annually in June — sounds like a pleasant environment and experience.

Having ascended the Imperial Staircase into the Imperial Corridor, we entered the museum, which in days of yore housed the Imperial apartments. Now it holds exhibits on the history of the monastery and its current activities, including the cultural, political and economic functions which it used to serve and still serves in some regard, especially education. Some of the abbey’s most noteworthy art treasures are also found in the museum. Unfortunately many of the oldest medieval pieces, especially those containing precious metals, had to be sold off to help pay for the wars of the Habsburgs. But some of the most important documents, including chronicles of the history of the monastery and records relating to its construction, remain in the museum.

After visiting the Museum we toured two of the most imposing parts of the Monastery, the Marble Hall and the Library. I don’t have photos of the interior of either of these, only the exterior. The Marble Hall was a guest reception room and dining hall for festive occasions, especially those involving the imperial court. There are two inscriptions in Latin above its doors: “Hospites tamquam Christus suscipiantur” (“Guests should be received as if they were Christ”) and “Et omnibus congruus honor exhibiatur” (“And to each the honor given which is due”). These are quotations from the Rule of St. Benedict. I suspect they were observed more in the case of guests from the Imperial Court more than for lesser beings such as itinerant pilgrims. The ceiling of the Marble Hall features a stunning fresco done by Paul Troger in 1731, depicting the Greek goddess Pallas Athena driving a chariot pulled by lions, and also Hercules killing the Hound of Hell with his club. The allusion to Hercules was in deference to Charles VI, who was the reigning emperor in 1731 and liked to be compared to Hercules.

The Library also has a magnificent ceiling fresco by Paul Troger. But whereas the Marble Hall fresco expresses a wordly theme in alluding to the virtues of the Habsburgs, its counterpart in the Library idealizes Faith, represented by a woman holding biblical symbols in one hand and the shield of the Holy Spirit in the other. She is accompanied by angelic figures representing the four cardinal virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude. Additional paintings by Troger and others around the ceiling borders represent the arts and sciences; sculptures at the doors symbolize the four faculties of the premodern university – theology, philosophy, medicine and law. The list of artworks in the library and its adjacent rooms goes on and on, and is too lengthy for me to recite here. The bookshelves themselves are works of art, and the books are bound to match them.

Finally, we descended via the Spiral Staircase to the Abbey Church. I managed to sneak a couple photos of the interior. One of them provides a view of the High Altar, where center stage (as it were) is taken by the figures of Saints Peter and Paul. Legend has it that they were both held in prison together during the Neronian persecution of 64 CE and were executed on the same day, Peter being crucified upside-down and Paul beheaded with a sword. They are depicted on the High Altar as shaking hands in farewell before being led out to execution. The altar also has figures depicting some of the Old Testament prophets on either side of the saints. At the center of the second level of the altar is a crown of victory, together with figures depicting battles of the Church against various evils. The third level has figures of Moses and Aaron on either side of a panel depicting God the Father. On the ceiling are frescoes by a painter from Salzburg, Johann Michael Rottmayr, completed in 1722. The dome, completed in 1717, also has frescoes by Rottmayr.

The Abbey Church has many other artistic masterpieces, too numerous to describe here (and my powers of description are inadequate to do them justice in any case). But one of the major takeaways from my visit to Melk Abbey involves the method behind the masterworks of the Baroque-era reconstruction. Abbot Berthold Dietmayr, the instigator and driving force behind the project, commissioned the greatest artists and architects available to create some of the key pieces of work, and had them sketch out the designs for others. Then he engaged local artists to execute the designs, pushing them to scale heights of skill they would never have attained otherwise. I think this was a key secret of his success and a major reason for his acclamation by posterity.

Our guided tour ended at the Imperial Corridor. There we were invited to explore the gardens of the monastery, which are quite extensive and include some additional architectural jewels (at an additional cost). I didn’t allow myself enough time to see all of the gardens because I spent too much time and money in the gift shop, where among other things I bought a little book about the abbey, which goes into great detail about its history, art and architecture as well as its current activities. Written by the abbot and other members of the abbey staff, and published by the Benedictine press, the book contains in addition to the text a great many beautiful pictures of the monastery, both its interior and exterior. I have shamelessly drawn much of the content of this post from it, while carefully abridging and paraphrasing the material to avoid charges of plagiarism. I cannot reproduce any of the wonderful photos from the book here, but there are some very nice ones to be found on the Wikipedia page for Melk Abbey. Don’t miss the photos of the church interior, the Library and above all the Spiral Staircase, which is one of the most fabulous examples of its genre anywhere. A couple from Alabama named Kevin and Amanda also have some extraordinary pictures of the Spiral Staircase on their website. (Note that I am not referring to the Imperial Staircase, a shot of which I’ve included in the gallery above, but rather the interior staircase connecting the church and the Library). See also the 365Austria Melk Abbey web page. And of course Melk Abbey’s own website has marvelous photos of most of its attractions.

I did manage to see the Baroque Garden, which is the setting for an exquisite pavilion built in 1848 to provide rest and relaxation for the monks after their arduous exertions in fasting and praying. It contains a tea room with exotic frescoes painted on the walls by Johann Bergl, who filled his work with plants, animals, jungle themes and native people. I did not have time to explore the interior of the building, let alone take tea there, but there are some excellent photos of it on the web by a Canadian-German photographer, Nina On the Go [sic]. From the garden I was also able to get a shot of one of the Babenberg towers, part of the original castle fortifications from the 11th century.

All too soon it was time to return to the Monarch Queen, which was about to begin the long journey to its next port of Aschach, the jumpoff point for the excursion to Salzburg. We climbed the same grand staircase which we had descended from the parking lot, and were bid farewell by the parting admonition carved in the stone in the midst of the steps: “Ankommen und du wirst Höre” — “Come and ye shall hear.”

The Wachau Valley lies between the city of Krems and the town of Melk, a distance of only 36 kilometers or 22 miles. It takes only a half-hour to drive 31 kilometers by automobile from Dürnstein to Melk, at the western end of the Wachau Valley. It took the Monarch Queen about four hours. I would have been quite happy if it had taken four days, with long stops at each quay. Exploring all the towns we passed, from Krems to Melk, would have made a fabulous odyssey, and if I ever get the chance, I’ll go back and do that. For the Wachau Valley is one of the world’s idyllic places, and its pristine beauty makes one want to stay there forever.

It’s easy to get around in the Wachau Valley; several means of transportation are available. Major highways and rail lines run from Vienna to Krems and Melk. Within the valley, the Donau Bundesstrasse B3 runs from Krems to Melk on the north bank, while another highway, the Aggsteiner Strasse, runs along the south bank. Both have associated bike paths; the ride from Melk to Krems is said to take 3-4 hours, but that is mostly downhill – the ride in the opposite direction would take much longer. We saw many bicyclists on the way from Dürnstein to Melk.

The Donau Bundesstrasse is part of the Austrian Romantic Route, a 380-kilometer route which runs from Vienna to Salzburg. To avoid cutting through the heart of Dürnstein, it runs through a tunnel, which when built in 1959 was the longest and most modern federal road tunnel in Austria (472 meters, 1548 feet). Of course there is bus service within the valley, and there is also a railroad line running next to (and above) the Donau Bundesstrasse, known as the Wachaubahn. The railway is operated by Lower Austria Railways, owned by the Lower Austrian provincial government, and runs from Krems to Emmersdorf, on the north bank of the Danube opposite Melk.

Not surprisingly, since we were doing it ourselves, waterborne travel is one of the major modes of transportation in the Wachau Valley. In addition to cruise lines such as Gate1 and Ama Waterways, there are regularly scheduled services between the major towns and “theme trips” available for short-distance day excursions.

But the transport mode that caught our attention most dramatically on our journey through the Wachau was the one used to cross the river rather than follow it: cable ferries. There are no bridges over the Danube in the Wachau Valley, so these ferries are the only way to cross. In my experience they are unique. The ferryboats have neither motors nor sails (nor for that matter, oars). They have only a rudder, which is set at an angle to the river current, and the energy of the current against the rudder is what propels the ferryboat. The boat is prevented from moving downstream by being tethered to an overhead cable, strung across the river and anchored to towers on either side. This struck me as being quite an eco-friendly and energy-efficient mode of transportation and I wondered why I haven’t seen it elsewhere.

The first cable ferry we encountered was at Weissenkirchen, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) up the Danube from Dürnstein. Weißenkirchen in der Wachau, to give it its full authentic name in German spelling, is a village of about 1600 people right in the middle of the most prolific wine-producing area of the Wachau Valley. It is also the setting of the Teisenhoferhof, a structure originally built in Gothic style as part of the fortifications of the nearby church in the 14th century, when it served as a crossbow-shooting range. In 1542, however, it was expanded with an arcaded courtyard in the Renaissance style, and today it is considered one of the most beautiful courtyards in Austria. It is a popular venue for concerts, plays and other cultural events, especially wine festivals. It also hosts the Wachau Museum and an art gallery.

The Weissenkirchen parish church – for which I suspect the village is named – is a striking structure, easily the most prominent landmark in the village, with its steep red roof and soaring square tower. It was built in the 14th century, although its origins date from much earlier. Another highly visible landmark is a brilliant white chateau or mansion on a hill to the northeast of the church; but I was unable to identify it from the map, and since we didn’t stop at Weissenkirchen, I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me about it. I guess I’ll have to go back to Weissenkirchen sometime and find out what it is.

After passing Weissenkirchen’s neighbor, Wösendorf, we came to another village or hamlet, St. Michael’s, that was very different from its neighbors. Like Weissenkirchen, it had a wehrkirche (fortress church), but that church appeared to be carved out of the stone of the mountainside by giants and the rest of the village seemed to be no more than an insignificant adjunct to it. Indeed the village itself was nearly invisible, hidden in the trees, and the space between the mountainside and the Danube was so narrow that there didn’t seem to be any room for it. I found out later that there are only 13 houses in the village, but the church itself is very old and famous, dating from the tenth century in its original version. In its current incarnation it is Gothic, with a steep red roof and a square stubby tower with no spire on top. On its roof are said to be seven rabbits. I did not see them, and I can’t find them in my photos, but there is a legend associated with them: supposedly one winter’s night a blizzard filled the gap between the mountain and the church with snow, and the rabbits ran across the snow to investigate the church. But in the morning the snow melted, and the rabbits were stranded, with no way to get back to the mountain. Somebody – God, Mother Nature, whoever – felt sorry for them and turned them to stone so they could stay on the roof forever. Since I never saw the rabbits, I assumed that whoever turned them into stone later turned them back into live rabbits, and set them on the ground or gave them parachutes, so that they were then able to run away.

Turning my attention from the wehrkirche back to the river, I spied a couple of speedboats heading toward us. I thought they might be pirates coming to hijack us, but they sped on past, probably with bigger game in mind, such as pillaging Weissenkirchen. Meanwhile a couple of kayakers waved to us from their slender craft. In general we saw very few watercraft on the river in the Wachau Valley; I suspect that private boating is restricted to protect the pillars of the local economy – winemaking and tourism – by preserving the pristine ambience of the river. And to discourage piracy.

Just past St. Michael’s I noticed that the Wachaubahn railroad, which follows the Danube through the Wachau Valley, passes through a tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel is protected from rockslides by nets stretched over the mountainside above the railway. The nets also prevent rocks from falling on the Bundesstrasse highway, which runs below the railroad. For much of the way along the Danube from Dürnstein to Spitz, in the intervals between towns there is a narrow gap between the river and the towering stony cliffs, making for a rocky romance on this stretch of the Austrian Romantic Road. St. Michael’s just manages to fit in a small niche beside the road. Wherever there is any bare space on the mountainside that is not quite vertical, grapevines are planted.

There is a long history of viticulture in Austria, dating from pre-Roman times. But during the early medieval period after the fall of the Roman Empire, wine production in the area experienced a “dark age” owing to the ravages of invasions by barbarians such as the Huns, Vandals, Avars, Bulgars and Magyars. Eventually, with the pacification of the barbarians and the establishment of monasteries throughout Central Europe, agriculture and commerce began to recover. The monastic orders were particularly influential in promoting the spread of viticulture, identifying suitable sites along the banks of the Danube in the Wachau Valley and cultivating them. In the early modern period (16th-18th century) wine production in the Wachau, as well as Austria in general, made great strides, but during the second half of the 19th century the phylloxera epidemic decimated the wine industry in the Wachau as in the rest of Europe. In the twentieth century, the situation improved following the development of techniques of grafting European grapevines onto American root stock which is resistant to the depredations of the insect that causes phylloxera.

The Wachau Valley is noted for its white wines, which are produced mostly from two types of grapes, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. The climate of the valley is particularly favorable to these varieties because of the wide diurnal temperature variations, which allow sugars and phenol compounds to accumulate during the warm daytime hours, while the much cooler nights help preserve essential acidity and fruity aromatics. The soil characteristics also play a critical role. The thin, stony soils on the hills along the riverbank are rich in iron deposits and contain mixtures of gneiss, granite and slate. Riesling grapes especially like these higher areas. Lower down, the flatter areas close to the riverbank have become overlain with a thin layer of loess, sand and gravel where the Grüner Veltliner vines thrive best. The latter is the most widely planted varietal in the Wachau Valley as well as in the rest of Austria, and is considered Austria’s most significant autochthonous grape variety. Despite its fame, Wachau is a small wine-producing region, with 124 vineyards and 650 growers cultivating 3340 acres (1350 hectares),  and accounts for only about 3% of Austria’s wine production. I suspect that this is the reason why the wines of Wachau (in my experience, at least) are not very easy to find in the USA and somewhat pricey when one does find them.

A little further upriver from St. Michael’s, we encountered Spitz, a market town of about 1,600 people, a little larger than Ferndale, California (population 1,481) but with fewer churches (Ferndale had at least 13 when I lived there in 1965). Spitz has two main landmarks. One is the Tausendeimerberg. The other is the Hinterhaus castle, which I shall deal with later.

The Tausendeimerberg is a high hill in the middle of Spitz. The name means “Hill of a Thousand Buckets” because its vines produce a vast quantity of grape juice. As you will see from the pictures here, it is almost completely covered with grape vines.

Spitz is a hub of water transport, with a yacht marina, a Donaustation (terminal) for riverboats, and a cable ferry terminal, the third we encountered in the Wachau Valley. The marquee on the riverboat terminal building reads Ersten Donau Dampfschifffahrts Gesellschaft, “First Danube Steamboat Line Company.” Known by the abbreviation DDSG, it was founded in 1829 by a couple of mad Englishmen who convinced Metternich and the Emperor that the steam engine could replace draft animals as a means of propulsion for riverboats going upstream on the Danube. (They were right, of course, but it took a while for the venture to become viable.) The steam engines initially came from Britain since Austria was not yet industrially advanced enough to build them. After some initial setbacks, and a government takeover, the DDSG eventually (by 1880) became the largest inland shipping company in the world. But the First and Second World Wars brought disaster to the DDSG as to Austria in general, and in the aftermath the company was never fully restored to profitabilty. Additionally, after World War II passenger ship traffic along the Danube could not compete very well with railroad and automobile travel because of the long wait times in the Danube locks, which were the result of the construction of new power plants along the river. (We had to go through several of these waits before and after the Wachau Valley, but the schedule was calculated so that we mostly encountered the locks at night.) As a result, the company’s passenger service became mostly a tourist business. In 1991 the DDSG was divided into two units, with one, DDSG-Cargo GmbH, handling the cargo business and the other taking care of passenger service. The former is now owned by the Ukrainian company Ferrexpo. After no single buyer could be found for the passenger service, it was broken up and solod piecemeal to several outfits, the main one being DDSG Blue Danube Schiffahrt GmbH, which focuses on the core areas of Vienna and Wachau. Spitz is of course one of the riverboat stops for Blue Danube, as well as other lines. The DDSG Blue Danube operates two cruise ships that ply the Danube through the Wachau Valley. They put in at Spitz several times a day during the high season (April-October). Another line, the Brandner Schiffahrt GmbH, stops twice a day at Spitz.

The town of Spitz lies mostly between the base of the Tausendeimerberg and the riverbank. The Monarch Queen did not stop there, but from its top deck we got a good look at its elegant mansions, verdant vineyards and enticing eateries such as the Strandcafé, where one can dine indoors or on an outdoor terrace overlooking the river. The town also has the Schifffahrtsmuseum Spitz (Spitz Shipping Museum), which offers exhibits on the technology and history of shipping on the Danube.

Spitz is a very old town. The area has been inhabited since Celtic times – 2000 BC or so. In 812 Charlemagne donated the land to a Bavarian monastery, Niederaltaich Abbey, and it remained a Bavarian enclave until 1504, when Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I acquired it. But he sold it, and through various further transfers of ownership it passed into the grasp of Protestant counts and became a center of Reformation activity. During the Thirty Years’ War Spitz was devastated by both Catholic and Protestant troops, but eventually it wound up in the Catholic camp after its rulers, the Kuefstein family, reconverted to Catholicism.

High on a mountain spur to the southwest of Spitz stands the formidable-looking ruin of the Hinterhaus castle, the town’s second major claim to fame. It’s not certain when it was first built, perhaps in the 12th century, but it first appears in medieval chronicles in the year 1243. It was then owned by the Kuenrings of Dürnstein, whom we have met already, and it is reputedly haunted by the ghost of Heinrich Iron von Kuenring’s first wife, who was outraged that her husband did not wait the prescribed period of mourning before marrying his second wife. The relationship between the castle and the town, which was owned by the Bavarian monastery while the Kuenrings ruled in the Wachau, is unclear from the sources available to me, and could be a subject for further research.

A little way upriver from the Hinterhaus, and beyond the boundary of Spitz, a spur of rock juts into the Danube. This is known as the Teufelmauer, or Devil’s Wall. According to legend, Satan wanted to build a wall or dam to flood the upper Wachau Valley, and God (for reasons unknown) gave him a single night for its construction with the proviso that if by the first cockcrow the wall was not finished it would collapse. Satan, perhaps realizing that roosters can crow at any hour and not just the break of dawn (and I know that from personal experience), bought up all the roosters from the nearby farms and slaughtered them to give himself a better chance of success. Tough luck for him – he overlooked one owned by an old woman from St Johann. Her rooster crowed and the wall collapsed. All that remains is the spur, which today is pierced by a tunnel.

After we passed the Teufelmauer, Sandie and I went below for lunch and watched the rest of the Wachau Valley go by from the ship’s windows. Thus I don’t have any photos of the towns of Schwallenbach, Willendorf, Groisbach, Aggsbach or the other towns of the Wachau Valley until we debarked at Melk. And our sojourn at Melk Abbey will be the subject of the next post.

Early in the morning of June 20, the Monarch Queen tied up at the dock at Dürnstein, closely followed by the light cruiser Crucestar of the Ukrainian Navy, which had been shadowing us all night. We had entered the Wachau Valley, a spectacularly beautiful 36-kilometer (22 mile) stretch of the Danube in Lower Austria between the towns of Krems and Melk.

I had arisen early and while our cruise ship was docking, I went to the top deck with my Canon EOS-6D DSLR and 70-200mm telephoto lens to try to capture river scenes in the morning sunlight. The Danube is flowing north at Dürnstein and we were on the east bank; the rising sun lit up the west bank splendidly, while the east bank, with the town of Dürnstein, was still partly in shadow.

The Monarch Queen had tied up a little way downriver from the town and getting there, as well as getting around in town, was done strictly on foot. After breakfast I began the trek with the rest of the Monarch Queen group, minus Sandie, who was not up to much walking that day. We reached the town via the Treppelweg, which means towpath in English; it which runs all along the Danube in Austria and in the days before the arrival of the railroad was indeed used as a towpath to haul boats up the river against the current. It now serves as a bicycle path as well as a pedestrian walkway. From the Treppelweg we had splendid views of the west bank of the river, the town of Dürnstein and of Dürnstein castle on its hill high above.

About Dürnstein Castle. In 1190 Leopold V, Duke of Austria, of the House of Babenberg, embarked upon the Third Crusade. Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, had done the same the previous year, but he drowned while trying to cross a river in Turkey and was succeeded by his son, who became Henry VI. Henry did not go on the Crusade, but Kings Richard I of England and Philip II of France did take the cross. The occasion for the Third Crusade was the capture of Jerusalem and other Christian-held areas of Palestine in 1187 by Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin. Philip and Richard were bitter enemies and each only agreed to go on the crusade if the other would also.

Upon arrival in Palestine in the spring of 1991, Duke Leopold, Philip and Richard teamed up to besiege the city of Acre. They did in fact take the city, but then they started to quarrel. At stake was who would be the next King of Jerusalem, which they intended to retake from Saladin. Philip and Leopold’s candidate, Conrad of Montferrat, who was related to them both, was the eventual winner, but he was assassinated before his coronation, and they suspected Richard of arranging the murder. Furthermore, Richard had enraged Leopold by casting down his standard from the walls of Acre on the grounds that Leopold was only a duke, not a king, and therefore not entitled to equal status with Philip and Richard, even though Leopold was the representative of the Holy Roman Emperor. So, in August 1991, Philip and Leopold left Palestine, leaving Richard to continue the Third Crusade by himself.

Richard won a couple more victories, but he did not capture Jerusalem, and he was all too aware that Philip II of France, not to mention his own younger brother John, were taking advantage of his absence to advance their own nefarious schemes, so he signed a treaty with Saladin and left for home.

Unfortunately, circumstances forced him to take a risky and uncertain route, which happened to lead through Austria, which of course was ruled by his now arch-enemy Leopold. Richard disguised himself in an attempt to avoid detection, but he was recognized and arrested anyway. Leopold V clapped into prison in — you guessed it — the castle of Dürnstein, where the local baron, Hadmar II of Kuenring, became Richard’s jailer.

Richard did not remain in Dürnstein long, however. The Pope, Celestine III, was not happy about the imprisonment of a Crusader, which was considered illegal and shameful, and he excommunicated Leopold. This was no small matter in those days, and Leopold was unwilling to endure papal wrath on his own, but also reluctant to simply set Richard free, so he handed the king over to Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, who also bore Richard a few grudges and who imprisoned him in another castle. Henry also had powerful supporters in the Church, which made the Pope back off from excommunicating him. To release Richard, Henry demanded a ransom of 150,000 marks, three times the annual income of the English Crown. Richard’s mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, worked assiduously to raise the ransom, and did so, despite the machinations of John and Philip, who offered Henry VI 80,000 marks to keep Richard a prisoner. But Henry VI took the ransom, and Richard eventually went home, to find that Philip II of France had occupied Normandy in his absence. Richard forgave John for his schemes, but was eventually killed fighting in France, whereupon John became King of England anyway. And he became known as John Lackland, because Philip seized his remaining possessions in France.

Leopold V got 35,000 marks as his share of the ransom, but he did not live to enjoy it very long. To obtain absolution from the Pope, he signed up for another Crusade, but before he could go he died from gangrene resulting from a foot crushed when his horse fell on him in a tournament. Henry VI fared better, going on to conquer Sicily with the aid of the ransom money, and soon becoming the most powerful monarch in Europe; he died in 1197.

So Richard the Lionheart’s brief imprisonment in Dürnstein became its claim to fame. Hadmar II of Kuenring, the erstwhile jailer of Richard the Lionheart, lived to the ripe old age of 77. His descendants continued to rule in Dürnstein until 1355. The Kuenrings were ministeriales – in effect vassals or minions – of the Babenberg dukes of Austria, but their line died out in 1246 and was eventually replaced by the Habsburgs, who may have wanted to impose their own direct rule (the sources available to me are vague about this). Regardless, the Kuenrings continued to be powerful and influential long afterward, and their name is still remembered in Dürnstein.

During the Thirty Years’ War, in 1645, Swedish troops attacked Dürnstein castle and turned it into the ruin we see today. I did not attempt to make the steep climb up to the castle, which on that warm June day was likely to have done me in. Instead, I roamed the streets of the town until it was time to return to the ship. The only way to enter the town is by the Kremsertor, or Krems Gate, at the southeast end. There had been another gate at the northwest end of town, the Weissenkirchen Gate, but it was torn down in the 20th century. In any case, the Kremstor was always the main gate, with the heaviest fortifications, because it faced the direction from which attacks were most likely to come, whether from rival towns such as Krems, oppressive rulers or foreign intruders such as the Magyars.

Located inside the Krems Gate is a wine shop, the Vinothek Kremstor, which displays its wares on a rack hanging on the wall outside. A couple from the Gate1 group asked me to take their picture in front of the display, and I gladly obliged; they graciously returned the favor.

Dürnstein is a tourist trap par excellence, by which I mean that it is the best kind of tourist trap. Visitors can spend as many hours and as much or as little money as they please. I did not spend much. I bought postcards, a T-shirt for myself and a few trinkets for friends and relatives. Although the Wachau valley is famous for its fine wines, I didn’t buy any wine because the bottles would have been a heavy burden and costly to ship home. There were some enticing eating-places, but no time to enjoy them and anyway lunch was waiting on the boat. So I simply ambled from the Krems Gate down the Hauptstrasse, the main street of Dürnstein, pausing to shoot photos of the various attractions I encountered.

One noteworthy landmark was the steeple of the Kunigundenkirche, the Church of St. Cunigunde, dedicated to the wife of Emperor Henry II. It was the first parish church of Dürnstein, built by the Kuenring family in the early 13th century, not long after the incarceration of Richard the Lionheart. The Kuenrings passed it on to the Poor Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. The church was demolished in 1783, except for the steeple; the land on which the church stood was then used as a cemetery, which is still the final resting place of deceased residents of Dürnstein.

I didn’t go into Dürnstein Abbey, but contented myself with photogaphing it from afar. The abbey was begun in 1410 by the Kuenrings, who brought in Augustinian monks from Bohemia to build the church, cloister and monastery. These were all Gothic in style; the abbey did not acquire its Baroque appearance until a major renovation begun in 1710, and the magnificent bell tower was added in 1733.

Emperor Joseph II dissolved many of the monasteries during his reign, among them Dürnstein Abbey. Its properties were handed over to one of the surviving monasteries and it was essentially turned into a parish church, which it remains today.

I have always found the German word for “City Hall” rather amusing because it is so suggestive: “Rathaus.” (It’s not only the English translation of “rat,” the German word for council, that provides the humor; the German word for “rat” the rodent is “die Ratte.”) In Dürnstein, the building which became the Rathaus was first built in the Gothic style in the mid-sixteenth century, and a few years later, in 1563, rebuilt in the Renaissance fashion, although the windows and doors were retained in their original Gothic form. Around 1593 the city fathers bought the structure and began to use it as a town hall. But they soon found that it was too large for their needs, and they sold the northern half to a private citizen who turned it into an inn, now known as the Altes Rathaus. The southern half, which the town retained, contains a Registry Office, where marriages are recorded, and a Conference Hall, where marriages are often performed. In days of yore, the conference hall also served as a courtroom, and rooms adjacent to it were used as a jailhouse. The ground floor used to hold a public wine press, where local vintners who did not have their own wine presses could come to squeeze their grapes. The courtyard and the steps leading to the Registry office are often used as venue for wedding photographs.

A little way up the street from the Rathaus is the Kuenringerhof, a restaurant and guest house bearing the name of the family who for centuries did so much to shape the development of the town. I haven’t been able to find out if the Kuenrings or their descendants still own it, but having their name on it helps to ensure that they are not forgotten.

All too soon it was time to return to the Monarch Queen for lunch and the next leg of our journey, which was to take us through the rest of the Wachau Valley to Melk.