Melk Abby | Life in Japan and Beyond

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37 miles (some of which was on a boat), 4 hours (also includes boat time)

We started out in the most perfect, beautiful morning. Just the right temperature and beautiful blue skies. Here’s our view at breakfast.

Our first stop was the Benedictine Abby in Melk.

Since we wanted to catch the 1100 ferry we didn’t have much time to explore.

We had a voucher for a ferry ride from Melk to Spitz so we hopped aboard.

We parked the bike in a special bike room

and grabbed a table in the stern in the shade along the port side. A great view from here. Did you notice those dark clouds in the photo above? As soon as we were underway, the skies opened up and poured a nice spring rain. It was fine for us but all the people who, a moment ago were basking in the sun, had to run for cover. The rain stopped after a few minutes, they all scampered back to their seats, got all relaxed and then another dump. The same drill again, and after a few minutes the rain stopped again and everyone settled down. This whole time Chris and I just sat and enjoyed our perfect spot. Here’s one of the castle ruins we saw along the way.

While on this 45 minute river cruise we entered the Wachau wine region of Austria. The whites from this region are exported world wide.

We were very excited and looking forward to this portion of our trip. We’d heard great things about this area and all the great wine tasting opportunities. So as we got off the boat we started looking for the wineries and sure enough they were everywhere. The first one right near the ferry dock was closed but check this out. The line way at the top of this wall is the high water mark from the 2002 flood.

As we continued our search for wineries we discovered that they were all closed on Sunday. We couldn’t believe the tour company scheduled our one day in wine country on a Sunday. Such a disappointment.

We can’t complain too much as the riding was spectacular.