More Tuesday!
I left off with our return from Durnstein, which means that we, as an entire boat, pushed off and headed further up river. Our next stop, Melch!
Melch is most known for its Melch Abbey, which you can see behind us above. After our last "special interest" tour, Bill and I were completely done with the provided tours. There WAS a tour that was set to go explore the Abbey, but it didn't leave until like 4:30, and we were docked by 3:00 PM. We, along with our new friends Ilene and Sharon decided to just walk into town and see what we saw.
As we stepped off the boat, we had a wonderful view of...the road. And barren trees. I guess I need to remember that it IS Winter in Europe...there's not going to be much greenery, unless it's the fake stuff in the Markets!
While Ilene and I sped ahead Bill and Sharon decided to take a slightly slower pace to chit chat, see the scenery, and otherwise just enjoy the experience.
As we came closer to town, we got our first view of Melch Abbey, and boy was it is imposing! The picture doesn't show it that great, but all in all, it was high up on a hill, and it overlooked the town, Danube, and otherwise was a site to behold.
Town itself was really super cute. The thing that got me, however, was that it was only 3:30 or so, and most everything was closed. And what makes it worse is that the Christmas market was OVER. Like, two days ago was it's last day! WHAT?! Bummer. We continued meandering through town, stopping to look at random things.
Along the way I happened to look into one of the stores, and saw a really neat distillery. We stopped in and said hello to the lonely looking worker, and perused the wares. He was selling some neat liqueur, which included apricot, melon, and other interesting flavors. He offered samples of lots of them, and much lighter on our feet, we were off to see more.
One of the views was of this stair way. It was really neat to see the different ups and downs, and all of that. The lights were kind of neat as well. Good thing I had my handy camera in hand! Too bad there were stupid fences in the way...
Once we got to the top, I was super excited to see what we saw. I even took time to swap out lenses on my new camera and went snap happy. Poor Bill and Ilene had to stand around and wait for me to hurry it up. I wanted to snap a few "framed" photos, or "multi-focal" photos. My efforts are below..
Admittedly, the last two photos are almost identical. The difference is where the focal point was. I'm open to suggestions on which is better. I do have a preference, but I wanna hear yours...
Once I was done snapping photos, we finally stepped back down the stairs, and headed towards the Abbey proper. As is often the case, we always get focused on what's ahead, and never behind. When we were walking, I glanced back towards where we came, and saw the gates/archway above and decided it was a snappable snap.
The above picture was really interesting to get, as it was on the ceiling. I was trying my best to not lay on the ground, as I had on my long wool trenchcoat thingy. This was actually UNDER the archway that was leading into the Abbey proper.
So, on our way into the Abbey we were greeted with the two pictures above. I was glancing at them, trying to figure out why some of them had stuff in the windows, and numbers, and some didn't. And/or some of them were lit up, and others weren't. As I kept looking, I realized it was actually an advent calendar! Or at least, I thought it was. I suggested it to our group, and no one acknowledged me, so eh, all good.
We went into the square and Ilene started talking with a guy that was walking through. In the conversation we learned that this dated back to the bronze age, and that the windows were....drum roll please....an advent calendar!!
Unfortunately we were not allowed to go into the Abbey without a tour guide, and since we missed the last public tour guide, it seemed like we were just better off going back to the ship. This was good with Sharon, as she was worried that there was a military presence in the area (the Ship told us to keep right, as going left goes to the base), and we should be back on board. That was fine with everyone, since we were all getting cold, and the Abbey was neat to see, but limited in options to do.
Back through town we go!
Almost back to the warmth!!
Bill, Sharon, and Ilene leading the way. Warmth was soon to be had.
Once back on board, we met up with Mom again, and headed directly to dinner. As I've mentioned before, AMAWaterways has been amazingly top notch on food preparation. We all have left dinner feeling not only full, but to the point of bursting. Oofta. Mom was looking forward to the evenings activities, as tonight was the night that we were going to Christmas Carol our way through the evening.
After we caroled our way through the evening, Santa Came to Play. With his bag so full of toys, Santa shared his joy with everyone! (I was trying to make that work with Rudolph's pentameter, but I couldn't finish it...)
Anyway, there's a picture of mom floating around sitting on Santa's lap, and the look of joy on her face is worth posting. Sadly, I don't have that photo. Maybe they're keeping it from me on purpose. I'll post an interlude, or maybe just a whole post that is Mom on Santa's Lap, if I ever get a copy of it.
Interestingly enough, while we were preparing to Carol, we also ended up going through a lock! The first couple that we'd gone through were done while we were sleeping. The first one was so violent getting into that literally everyone on board woke up at 4:00 AM when we entered the lock, and those of us from the west coast thought we were having an earthquake!
Now, what's really interesting about the locks is that they're JUST wide enough for TWO of these river boats to sit side by side. This particular trip through, we didn't pull all the way up, but we did get about halfway up. Mere inches separated us from the river cruise next to us! Yikes!
Such a fun way to end the evening.
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