Melk, is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. Melk has a population of 5,222 (as of 2001). It is best known as the site of a massive baroque Benedictine monastery named Melk Abbey (Stift Melk). We arrived here at 05:30 on 9th May after an overnight cruise from Linz.
The main attraction is the Benedictine 
Abbey , Melk Abbey or Stift Melk which had undergone a 20 million Euro (equivalent) restoration completed in 1987. As part of our cruise there were shore trips included and a trip to this Abbey was one of the included tours. This is still a working abbey and the monks are also priests and work among the towns in the region. It is also a school and has a world-famous library containing many rare books. Scholars come from all over the world to use this resource. Our tour would take us through 11 rooms each with a theme (see here). The current Abbey was built between 1702 and 1736 replacing the earlier wooden Abbey.
As the above photo of the model shows the 
centre piece is the Church and to get there we walked through a large room, indeed a magnificent Baroque chamber with marbled clad walls and pillars. However, it is the ceiling that grabs the attention. Your eyes are drawn to it as if your body and mind are being sucked up from a mundane earth to the heavens above. It is very hard to convince yourself that what you see is a two-dimensional work as they eye and brain insists it is three-dimensional, a good tribute to the artist Paul Troger (1731) that pained the work all those centuries ago.
From here we walked along the curved balcony to the Library. Here resides “twelve rooms containing about 1.888 manuscripts, 750 incunabula (printed works before 1500), 1700 works from the 16th, 4500 from the 17th, and 18.000 from the 18th century; together with the newer books, approximately 100.000 volumes in total. About 16.000 of these are found in this library room. They are organized by topics: beginning with editions of the Bible in row I, theology (rows II to VII), jurisprudence (row VIII), geography and astronomy (row VIIII), history (rows X to XV), and ending with the baroque lexica in row XVI.“ The ceiling fresco by Paul Troger (1731/32)
From here we descend to the Abbey Church and all its splendour. The whole tour bombards the senses of sight with ostentatious signs of wealth, ornate rooms but here at the centre piece is man’s reverence for his god. Nothing plain and simple, all is scroll, guild and fresco. Ornate side alters and a very elaborate center (main) alter,my mind was overwhelmed by all.
As I said overwhelmed I left the Church and made my way out to the courtyard and to the gardens. Alas there was insufficient time to rally walk round the gardens but we did have enough time to visit the Pavillion Cafe. Sound good doe sit not, Pavillion Cafe, what does that conjure up in you mind? I though a nice cafe with relaxing atmosphere. Oh boy, nothing is simple in this Abbey.
The walls and ceilings had frescos on them. This time showing hunting scenes etc. Mind you it was cool and very relaxing. However, it was time to make our way back to the ship as we were sailing down river through the Wachau Valley to Durstien where we would spend the afternoon before an overnight sailing to Vienna (Wien).
I hope you enjoy the slide show of images of the Abbey, Church and Pavillion Cafe.
Click to view slideshow.
