Day 18: 29/04/06 Wachau

Along the valley...

Inside Stift Melk's main cathedral. According to GCS, this style is called High Baroque...

Outside Cafe Central

Inside Cafe Central: the glasses are for liqour coffee, and my cappuccino is in the small cup. Sacher's Torte is the chocolate cake in the centre.

We woke up rather early today in order to catch a train bound for Krems, the starting point of our 3 hour cruise up the Danube to Melk. Like the previous days, it was raining in the morning; we got some bread from a bakery near our hostel and brought them along as we travelled to Spittelau to catch our train.

It was a bad day to for the cruise: it was raining, and the most letally, it was cold! We could not bear waiting for the train at the platform because it was too cold; we hid in the U-Bahn station under cover while we had our breakfast.

Krems was not a big place; we walked from the train station end to the ferry terminal end in less than half an hour. We did not get to tour the town; we went directly to the ferry terminal, bought our tickets and waited there.

When we were at the ferry terminal the rain subsided a little; though the clouds continued to hang low, threatening to continue to produce more rain. By the way, most importantly, this was the first instance where we saw River Danube real, and realised that 'The Blue Danube' was probably the composer's illusion. The river was yellow; it was so full of sediments that I could not imagine it to be blue at any instant even if the sky was perfectly clear. The water was flowing really fast too.

The Wachau area was a UNESCO world heritage site and was supposed to be the most scenic stretch of River Danube. Indeed, from Krems we were able to see that the Danube flowed into a hilly area which was lined with vineyards and forest. The Wachau was one of the wine producing regions of Austria, however, I did not actually get to try it; neither were we able to see apricot blossoms which the brochures boasted and Tk eager to look out for.

The boat was basically a huge restaurant: it has no proper seat, everybody sat round restaurant tables which made you feel obliged to order something. We ordered some hot drinks each and french fries (apparently we were cold...). And of course, the most important thing was to admire the scenery and take photographs! We went to the upper deck and braved the wind and rain to take snapshots of the scenery along the way. Yj only went up once; our hero was feeling extremely cold due to some unknown reasons and preferred to stay indoors.

Other than vineyards and hills there were also several castles perched on top of hills and by the riverside. Due to the weather we were not able to see them clearly, anyway, I have forgotten all of their names and location. Nevertheless, I do remember that one of them was the place where Charles the Lionheart was held captive during the Crusades, and one of them was built by a family of outlaws as fortification.

The whole journey took 3 hours. Tk and me took turns to go upstairs to take pictures. There was not much surprise along the way, and it got pretty boring towards the end.

We reached Melk in the early afternoon. There was one very important sight in this insignificant town: Stift Melk, or the Melk Abbey. It was huge: basically ot occupied the whole hilltop which it was situated, and for several centuries it has been an Abbey which held high standards of discipline and spiritual achievement.

The tour of the abbey was not as fascinating as I would have thought. There were several halls which briefly introduced the abbey's history, their believes and what they were sorting after (a guide book actually termed that 'propaganda'... you get an idea what the exhibits were generally about). It was followed by the library and the church. The church was by far the best Baroque church I saw during the tour, closely rivalled by Assamkirche of Munich. The library was not exactly very big; I could imagine my university library to be able to beat it, let alone the one in the British Museum.

We returned to Vienna rather early and we went back to our hostel to use the Internet. That was when another Yj's story emerged:

Yj was talking to this Korean friend of his who will also be going to the same school as he did. To his horror, Yj found out from this friend that he was supposed to return his university housing forms by 1st May, which was 3 days later. Yj did not realise that there was a deadline and happily went for his vacation without settling the problem first. Well, instead of trying to rectify the problem, he started blaming the university for 'screwing up', causing him to miss the deadline. Apparently it is not his fault he suppose!

Of course he freaked out: he needed to settle his housing problem within 3 days and he had none of his documents with him in Vienna. Anyway, he could not do anything on the Internet so we decided to find a dinner place first. Since GCS had lived in Vienna for quite some time and he happened to be online, we asked him for recommendations and he told us to go to Siebenstern Brauhaus to try their ribs. So we asked for directions and went.

On our way to the restaurant, Yj was really jitterish. He kept complaining about how screwed up his school was. His complaining became so excessive that I could not take it anymore: to me, he should not be complaining in the first place because it is not possible that the school did not sent out clear instructions about housing ONLY TO HIM; if it is really the school's fault all international students should be affected. Apparently, his Korean friend knows but he doesn't! So whose fault was that? And he should be trying his best to save the situation by contacting the school, explaining circumstances and trying to get the school to accept his forms even if he is sending them in late! Complaining to us about the school would not help at all, wouldn't it?!!

I still remember vividly that I lectured him throughout our U-Bahn journey from Westbahnhof to Volkstheater, across the platform and all the way to the restaurant, telling him what should be the right attitude and the right way of solving his problem. From my viewpoint, of course.

Hmm Siebenstern was nice. It is a copy of the Bavarian beer hall and they added even more varieties of beer to it. They offer Honey Ale (something Tk has been looking for), Beer with a smoky taste (trust me it is really strange), and even Chilli beer (?!!); and of course the most famous and sought after food was their BBQ ribs. It was really good; not too salty, not dripping with sauce, and neither is it too dry. I liked it a lot. Tk didn't really seem to like it for some strange reason which I didn't comprehend :P

After dinner we decided to find a cafe to get a taste of Viennese coffee. We went to one of the most famous, Cafe Central (which is the one who fought with Sacher Hotel about the originality of the chocolate cake Sacher's Torte), at around 9pm when they are about to close. I ordered Cappuccino, Yj ordered Irish Coffee and I can't remember what Tk ordered. And we bought some cakes to share among ourselves.

The coffee there was the perfect blend for me but apparently it was not so for Tk; he still preferred (strongly) the kind he encountered in Rome the previous winter. And the cakes were alright but not exactly fantastic... Sacher's Torte's fame was actually a bit unfounded...