Melk
Came up this morning onto the roof deck into a massive industrial landscape on the river, and a quiet village silhouetted on low hills in the distance. A church rose up above the houses and caught the first of the morning light. We are in the biggest lock, by far, that we have been in – two ships wide, two ships long – and there are two of them. If necessary, this lock system can handle eight ships our size at a time. Everything is big.
We went through a single lock this size last night, during dinner. Both are also the highest/deepest locks we've encountered, again by far. I'll have to look up their dimensions. The river is wide at this point, and the part of it that doesn't go through the lock is held up by a really big dam; there are giant sluice gates along part of the dam, I assume for flood control.
UPDATE: Either this lock, or the one we went through last night, was the only lock on the Danube in Austria. That one was "24 meters wide and 230–275 meters usable length. Capacity: Fits a pusher vessel and four barges." Thanks, Google. Two and a half football fields long.
I'm at the bow (front) of the ship; we are the first of two ships in the lock and I am looking at the gates, which hold up a volume of water two ships wide and two ships deep. They are as big as you might expect. And there they go, opening silently, slowly, to reveal the rest of the river downstream. Actually, it's a really lock-like channel that, after a couple of ship-lengths, suddenly widens out into a conventional river. A highway crosses the river over locks and dams.
The Danube we have seen so far is less bucolic than primeval. The thick forests seem impenetrable as they march up the often-steep slopes. There are occasional houses but no signs of life on the shore.
Mornings have been a little warmer the last few days; I don't feel like I've got to go in after a half hour or so.
The sun is up, behind some hazy clouds. Soon I have to go in, as a wind has sprung up. Also, the ship is moving faster than it has up until now, because now it's going downstream, thus adding to the breeze.
The landscape soon begins rising up steeply on both sides. It's a gray morning – it became overcast just after sunrise – and we are in a deep valley with mist here and there, and mostly dark green all around. Individual houses and small villages cling to the slopes occasionally. Every single building is brightly colored and in good shape – this has actually been the rule throughout our trip.
It's quarter of eight and we're at Melk now, where we will stop to visit an abbey. There is another huge 4x4 lock system here – the third of the morning, and this one has a monster crane on tracks which can travel over the upstream gates – probably to remove and replace the single guillotine gate at that point. The downstream gates are the double swinging door type, and open with a creak and a clang. The Abbey clings to the cliff above the lock, looking down on it. We couldn't see it from the lock, but there is a long dam and flood control sluice complex like the last two had, across the now-wide river..
Oops – I guess this isn't Melk and that wasn't the Abbey, because we're continuing on, but whatever it was, it was cool. The river widens quickly outside the lock, and the land flattens out. Beautiful large buildings – municipal offices? - grace the right bank, with a village and a large church just beyond. Then a factory. Even the factories are reasonably easy to look at.
An announcement this morning informed us that because of traffic in the locks, we had lost enough time that the ship needed to drop us off before Melk, and we'd be bused there. Not sure how that solves the problem, but that's what we did. Our goal was Melk Abbey, a Benedictine abbey founded in 1089. The current huge and spectacular building took 34 years to build in the 18th century (new ecclesiastical construction in the 18th century? That would be – Baroque! Yaay!). It has always been way too big for just the monks (a monastery has only monks; an abbey has monks and other stuff), and so has housed a school, which it does to this day. As we were beginning our tour, our guide noted that the kids running over to collect papers from a girl with a box of papers were just getting their final grades. “We hope not so many long faces, yes?” It turns out that her daughter graduated from the school here. What amazed me is that none of the students boards here; they use the “excellent” public transportation system to get here every day.
This was also used as a kind of B&B for royalty for a hundred years or so after the current building was completed. Marie Antionette, who was an Austrian princess from Vienna before she was Queen of France, stayed here on her way to be married to Louis XVI and eventually lose her head. You had quite a retinue if you were royalty traveling anywhere back then – servants, ladies-in-waiting, artisans, hangers-on, etc. It cost thousands of Euros in today's currency value to stay a night – and that was just for a roof and food, because these clowns brought their own furniture with them.
Anyway – a magnificent building and a very good tour. This building has those huge ceramic
stoves that heat whole rooms and are fed by servants from behind the wall – we talk about them at Hyde Hall because there's a stove of similar design there, although it's cast iron and not ceramic. There was a series of rooms that very cleverly and charmingly traced the history of the Benedictine order and, at the same time, religion and religious politics in Europe during the second millennium. Each has priceless artifacts, nicely displayed, including an 800 year old portable altar with intricate ivory carvings, and a book that is older than that. Later, we saw two rooms of a library that, in whole, included over 100,000 books in seven rooms. This room held about ten thousand. I just sat down and looked for a while. The books all had “new” spines – 200 years old – so they looked like they were all from a set. They were mostly in Latin. Four of the around 80 monks are full-time librarians. Also in the library was a big globe from the early seventeenth century; it's fun to point out the mistakes (California is an island) but it was pretty good work for its time.
The building itself was stately Baroque outside, but was very plain inside – until you came to the church. Not a cathedral, because a bishop isn't there, but a church that is almost as big as the cathedral in Passau. And just as elaborately Baroque.
I've gone on and on about this style, so just imagine everything I've said before about it – but add about a dozen pounds of gold leaf. And two skeletons, both of so-called “catacomb saints,” both anonymous, and both in very elaborate glass sarcophagi. These saint skeletons were gifts to the Abbey by wealthy patrons, including Maria Theresa, the only female Hapsburg ruler. What a gift!
I'm at the bow (front) of the ship; we are the first of two ships in the lock and I am looking at the gates, which hold up a volume of water two ships wide and two ships deep. They are as big as you might expect. And there they go, opening silently, slowly, to reveal the rest of the river downstream. Actually, it's a really lock-like channel that, after a couple of ship-lengths, suddenly widens out into a conventional river. A highway crosses the river over locks and dams.
The Danube we have seen so far is less bucolic than primeval. The thick forests seem impenetrable as they march up the often-steep slopes. There are occasional houses but no signs of life on the shore.
Mornings have been a little warmer the last few days; I don't feel like I've got to go in after a half hour or so.
The sun is up, behind some hazy clouds. Soon I have to go in, as a wind has sprung up. Also, the ship is moving faster than it has up until now, because now it's going downstream, thus adding to the breeze.
The landscape soon begins rising up steeply on both sides. It's a gray morning – it became overcast just after sunrise – and we are in a deep valley with mist here and there, and mostly dark green all around. Individual houses and small villages cling to the slopes occasionally. Every single building is brightly colored and in good shape – this has actually been the rule throughout our trip.
Oops – I guess this isn't Melk and that wasn't the Abbey, because we're continuing on, but whatever it was, it was cool. The river widens quickly outside the lock, and the land flattens out. Beautiful large buildings – municipal offices? - grace the right bank, with a village and a large church just beyond. Then a factory. Even the factories are reasonably easy to look at.
An announcement this morning informed us that because of traffic in the locks, we had lost enough time that the ship needed to drop us off before Melk, and we'd be bused there. Not sure how that solves the problem, but that's what we did. Our goal was Melk Abbey, a Benedictine abbey founded in 1089. The current huge and spectacular building took 34 years to build in the 18th century (new ecclesiastical construction in the 18th century? That would be – Baroque! Yaay!). It has always been way too big for just the monks (a monastery has only monks; an abbey has monks and other stuff), and so has housed a school, which it does to this day. As we were beginning our tour, our guide noted that the kids running over to collect papers from a girl with a box of papers were just getting their final grades. “We hope not so many long faces, yes?” It turns out that her daughter graduated from the school here. What amazed me is that none of the students boards here; they use the “excellent” public transportation system to get here every day.
Anyway – a magnificent building and a very good tour. This building has those huge ceramic
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stoves that heat whole rooms and are fed by servants from behind the wall – we talk about them at Hyde Hall because there's a stove of similar design there, although it's cast iron and not ceramic. There was a series of rooms that very cleverly and charmingly traced the history of the Benedictine order and, at the same time, religion and religious politics in Europe during the second millennium. Each has priceless artifacts, nicely displayed, including an 800 year old portable altar with intricate ivory carvings, and a book that is older than that. Later, we saw two rooms of a library that, in whole, included over 100,000 books in seven rooms. This room held about ten thousand. I just sat down and looked for a while. The books all had “new” spines – 200 years old – so they looked like they were all from a set. They were mostly in Latin. Four of the around 80 monks are full-time librarians. Also in the library was a big globe from the early seventeenth century; it's fun to point out the mistakes (California is an island) but it was pretty good work for its time.
The building itself was stately Baroque outside, but was very plain inside – until you came to the church. Not a cathedral, because a bishop isn't there, but a church that is almost as big as the cathedral in Passau. And just as elaborately Baroque.
I've gone on and on about this style, so just imagine everything I've said before about it – but add about a dozen pounds of gold leaf. And two skeletons, both of so-called “catacomb saints,” both anonymous, and both in very elaborate glass sarcophagi. These saint skeletons were gifts to the Abbey by wealthy patrons, including Maria Theresa, the only female Hapsburg ruler. What a gift!
No pictures allowed in the church. You are spared any more hyperbolic frescoes.
We had someone take a picture of us under an arch with a full Renaissance landscape beyond it, and then left the Abbey, walked down a bunch of stairs to the old town and enjoyed a stroll down the high street. Shops and cafes, with the Abbey looming over all (top of page). Our Abbey went into a pottery shop; the owner spoke English, and after a while I had to go in and remind her that we had a boat to catch. Then across a highway and through a narrow forest along the shore, and we were back on the boat.
Afternoon. Mostly cloudy and breezy. We're passing through a section of river which is so picturesque that our Program Director is narrating the passage. It's very reminiscent of the section of the Rhine with the castles. It's also – the whole section of river and valley – a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so, no bridges. Lots of vineyards on the hills, especially the ones facing the sun. Quaint villages, ancient churches. The rows of grape vines are oriented in a horizontal manner, as the ones on the Rhine are vertical.
We learn that the barges transporting sand – including this one, right now – are coming from dredging sites; these rivers need to be dredged regularly in certain areas, and the sand is often high quality for use in construction (concrete, etc.). For days and days, we've seen just covered barges (and not many of them); this is the first one we've seen with the covers open. And sand inside.
Hey – right there (right) is the castle when Richard the Lion Heart was imprisoned for four months on his way home from the Third Crusade! Lots of legends have grown out of this, and his imprisonment and release features in many versions of the Robin Hood story, but he really was imprisoned, for something stupid, by the King of Austria, who had been his ally during the Crusade. His ransom was 150,000 marks, which, apparently, paid for the first defensive wall around Vienna.
The Danube flows generally west to east, and through ten different countries (the most countries of any river in the world) and is the longest river in Europe except for the Volga, which doesn't count, for some reason. When we get to Budapest, we will not be even halfway down the Danube.
Dinner was long, for some reason, and the temperature was about one degree lower than was comfortable, so I was cold most of the time. It sounds weird, but it's hard – really, impossible – to find a place to get warm on this boat, if it's not warm outside. The A/C is just a little too high. Partially my fault – I only brought a light jacket. Mornings are especially hard – if it gets too chilly up on the roof, going inside doesn't help.
After dinner, two young dancers came to demonstrate and teach the waltz, a Viennese specialty. They danced precursors to the waltz (which was only “invented” in the late 18th century). One was a traditional dance that probably evolved into the polka. Then they invited a few couples up to the tiny dance floor to learn basic waltz steps. I've always thought that if I know how to waltz, then everyone knows how to waltz, but – no. I gained some ironic and ridiculous satisfaction that I had found myself in a group of people in which I might be considered a pretty good dancer.
Afternoon. Mostly cloudy and breezy. We're passing through a section of river which is so picturesque that our Program Director is narrating the passage. It's very reminiscent of the section of the Rhine with the castles. It's also – the whole section of river and valley – a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so, no bridges. Lots of vineyards on the hills, especially the ones facing the sun. Quaint villages, ancient churches. The rows of grape vines are oriented in a horizontal manner, as the ones on the Rhine are vertical.
We learn that the barges transporting sand – including this one, right now – are coming from dredging sites; these rivers need to be dredged regularly in certain areas, and the sand is often high quality for use in construction (concrete, etc.). For days and days, we've seen just covered barges (and not many of them); this is the first one we've seen with the covers open. And sand inside.
Hey – right there (right) is the castle when Richard the Lion Heart was imprisoned for four months on his way home from the Third Crusade! Lots of legends have grown out of this, and his imprisonment and release features in many versions of the Robin Hood story, but he really was imprisoned, for something stupid, by the King of Austria, who had been his ally during the Crusade. His ransom was 150,000 marks, which, apparently, paid for the first defensive wall around Vienna.
The Danube flows generally west to east, and through ten different countries (the most countries of any river in the world) and is the longest river in Europe except for the Volga, which doesn't count, for some reason. When we get to Budapest, we will not be even halfway down the Danube.
Dinner was long, for some reason, and the temperature was about one degree lower than was comfortable, so I was cold most of the time. It sounds weird, but it's hard – really, impossible – to find a place to get warm on this boat, if it's not warm outside. The A/C is just a little too high. Partially my fault – I only brought a light jacket. Mornings are especially hard – if it gets too chilly up on the roof, going inside doesn't help.
After dinner, two young dancers came to demonstrate and teach the waltz, a Viennese specialty. They danced precursors to the waltz (which was only “invented” in the late 18th century). One was a traditional dance that probably evolved into the polka. Then they invited a few couples up to the tiny dance floor to learn basic waltz steps. I've always thought that if I know how to waltz, then everyone knows how to waltz, but – no. I gained some ironic and ridiculous satisfaction that I had found myself in a group of people in which I might be considered a pretty good dancer.
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* - Durnstein Abbey, in Durnstein, Austria, which has not been an Abbey since 1788.
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