Weekend in Vienna: Melk Abbey

We checked out of our Vienna apartment on Monday morning and drove an hour outside Vienna to Melk.  We spotted our destination while speeding along on the autobahn… The Melk Abbey.

On our way into Melk we found a beautiful little privately owned castle on the Danube.  Beautiful country side in the Wachau valley. 

“Melk abbey is an Austrian Benedictine abbey and one of the world’s most famous monastic sites. It is located above the town of Melk on a rocky outcrop overlooking the river Danube in Lower Austria”.  -- which you can see in the postcard they gave to the kids when we bought our tickets. – “The Abbey was founded in 1089. The monastic library soon became renowned for its extensive manuscript collection. Today’s impressive Baroque abbey was built between 1702 and 1736.”

      

It was fun to walk through the  Abbey.  We especially liked the ballroom with large windows on both sides letting lots of light in, and library with shelves of books to the ceiling and a ladder to reach them all.

The Ballroom…

The view of Melk from the Ballroom…

On the balcony between the Ballroom and the Library… and a picture of the inside of the ornate Abbey Church…

 

Dad and the girls in an outdoor hallway… and a walkway into Melk…

  

Matthew was being so funny on the way home.  He REALLY uses his eyebrows all the time.  He has such an expressive face – just like Luke.  He loves to move his eyebrows up and down really fast and the kids like to show his eyebrow tricks to their friends.  Today he was dancing with his eyebrows.  I guess being strapped into a car seat doesn’t allow for the more traditional kind of dancing but he still showed his moves with his shoulders and eyebrows.  He cracks us up.  Love you, cute boy.

The drive from Melk was about five and a half hours and we got home with plenty of time to unpack, start laundry and clean out the car.  Love that.  It was a good trip.

Weekend in Vienna: Sunday strolls

We were up early Sunday morning because we were headed to church – not ours today but to Catholic Mass x2!  The first one was to go hear the Vienna Boys Choir.  Tickets for this Sunday Mass go months in advance but if you are willing to sit in the lobby then you can at least hear them and see them on a monitor.

The church doesn’t look grand from the outside but it’s the Hofburg Chapel in the Imperial Palace in Vienna.  We wandered through the outside of the Imperial Palace to find the Chapel and made it just in time as they ushered guests to their seats and the lobby.  I’m sure the sound was 10 times better inside the chapel but it was fun to get the idea and see those little boys singing their hearts out.  After 25 minutes or so we headed back to the courtyard and tried to sing some Vienna Choir songs ourselves…

      

We really loved the architecture in Vienna.  It reminded us a lot of Paris.   Parks and green space in all directions, beautiful flower gardens, and clear blue sky just accentuated the white architecture.  It was just fun to walk around.

The Hofburg Palace in Vienna…

    

 

The Mozart Statue… At the early age of 4 years Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started to receive his musical education and was taught by his father. At the age of 5 he was presented as a child prodigy and performed his first musical tour throughout Europe. Mozart's career was closely linked to the city of Vienna. Aged 6, Mozart performed for the Austrian royals at the Hall of Mirrors at Schloss Schönbrunn (which is where we visited the day before) and enchanted Empress Maria Theresia and the rest of the imperial family with his talent and his liveliness. On this European tour it became clear that Mozart was not only an excellent performer, but was also interested in composing music himself. When he was 9 his first Sonatas were published in Paris.  He lived much of his life in Vienna composing piano concerti, chamber music and operas – (some of which we heard our first night in Vienna).     

Our second Mass was at 11:00am in this church (below on the left)… which also doesn’t look like some of the fancier cathedrals we’ve seen from the outside.  The inside, however, was gorgeous and absolutely filled to the brim with church goers and orchestra lovers.  This service had a full orchestra and the music was just amazing.  You can really appreciate the design and acoustics of a cathedral with a full orchestra.  I think it was the highlight of the day.  Truly magnificent.

  

We wandered through a rose garden after church and enjoyed sitting on the benches for awhile…

  

We ate bratwurst as we strolled through the city. 

 

Emily and Megan asked me to take pictures of them with their bratwurst. Funny girls.

 

Making our way back to St. Stephens Cathedral we decided to climb the tower. It was one of the tallest hardest climbs we’ve done and we’ve done a lot – or maybe we just have done too much eating gelato and not enough climbing lately. 

 

At about 3:00 we headed back to the apartment.  I had a wonderful nap.  Then we played games, ate dinner and then spent a beautiful evening back at the playground across the street.