Melk & Krems

Last weekend we ventured out of Vienna for a day excursion on the Danube to two picturesque towns called Melk and Krems. The whole area is filled with a number of little European towns. We stopped in just the two main towns, but next time we will definitely stop at some of the places in between.

Keith and Ezra taking a rest on the walk up to the Melk Abbey.

The famous Benedictine Abbey at Melk.
(Aerial view of Melk Abbey. Postcard image © P. Martin.)

An amazing library in the Melk Abbey. (It looks strikingly similar to the library in the house of our friends the Judis. The Judis' library ladder is much cooler though.)

We took a boat down the river from Melk to Krems. Here is one of the neat castles along the way.

This is another one of the charming little towns along the river called Dürnstein. (Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in the castle up on the hill.) There is a popular bike path all along this part of the Danube. We really want to do this trip by bike next time. It would be the perfect way to see everything in between.

We haven't gotten a lot of family shots, so when we found this mirror in the middle of one of the streets we thought we'd take advantage of it. I just wish this little Mini belonged to us.

We were all smiles in Krems until we realized that we couldn't find the train station and my phone with our maps had died. We tried asking around for directions, but our German is still pretty weak so we got even more lost. Finally a Romanian man took pity on us. He left his 5 kids and wife at the grocery store while he drove us to the station - just in time for our train. Some people are so nice. (Just ask Keith's sister Sally, she meets them all the time at Big Lots.)