Saturday 16 July: We started the day with a walking tour of Durnstein, Austria, one of the best-known wine villages in Wachau Valley.
The region is also good for growing apricots which are used for making liqueurs.It is a UNESCO listed medieval town dominated by castle ruins on the hill above the town.
This stretch of the Danube was notorious for the levying of transit taxes, and sometimes severe punishment of those who tried to pass without paying them.
Interestingly, in medieval times the rights for a settlement to be called a city (and levy taxes) was dependent on the strength of its fortifications.Possibly Durnstein‘s greatest claim to fame is the place where King Richard the Lionheart was incarcerated after insulting the Austrian king. Apparently a very high ransom was paid for his release – high enough to build a whole town.
Nearby is a monument rising from the fields that was built by the Austrians 100 years after Napoleon was defeated there by the Russians.The citizens were particularly unhappy with Napoleon as his troops reportedly drank some 50,000 pints of wine in four days.
We then travelled by bus to the Melk Austrian Benedictine Abbey, high on a fortified hill overlooking the valley and the Danube. A baroque abbey built between 1702 and 1736, it is one of the world’s most famous monastic sites.
Leopold III in the 11th Century handed his castle over to the monks and it became the seat of great wealth and power, still reporting directly to the Pope. The early monks were known for their extremely harsh lifestyle although that changed over time. There are 30 monks living there today.The tour went through a number of exhibition rooms, explaining the history and development of the abbey. Close to half a million tourists pass through there each year, so the process is pretty slick.
There are literally seconds between the tour groups being taken through. The sheer size of the place is impressive, and the ornate decoration in the library and church that we saw were outstanding.
On our way back to the boat, we stopped at Donauhof Hotel-Restaurant for a wine tasting. Because we were running late, we hardly had time to taste anything.
Frances and I made a valiant effort to down the three samples before we were ushered out to catch the boat. They provided 3 white wines, a light slightly fruity Steinfeder, a drier Federspiel and a fairly sweet dessert Beerenauslese.I liked the first two, and Frances liked them all! We at least managed to buy a bottle of the Federspiel to share with our table over lunch – unfortunately too heavy to take with us all the way to Holland.
