So where did I leave off on the river cruise? Oh, Day 5 – one of our favorite sites – the Abbey in Melk, Austria   This place was beautiful!

From the port, we took buses to the Abbey.

We toured the grounds and learned the history of the town and the abbey.

We then headed inside and toured many of the rooms (too many to see them all!).

I couldn’t capture it well in this photo but the ceilings were really cool.  While they were flat, the techniques used made them look deeper and curved.

In order to get from one part of the abbey to another, on an upper level, we had to go outside for a short bit.  From there, we could see the school that they used to (maybe still do) run for the kids in the town.

Facing the other direction, there was a courtyard prior to entering my favorite part of the abbey…

The library!!!!

The photos here couldn’t have a flash – some of the texts were very old and there were no lights other than through the windows in this space.

After the library, we headed down to the chapel.  As we would see again when we got to Rome, this had lots and lots of decadence.

This photo was a coffin with actual bones in it.  If I recall correctly, at one point in Austrian history (or history of the Catholic church), the people wanted to pray to actual people or believed that the bones were actually the saint they thought they were praying to.  Perhaps one of you knows the history better?

One of our friends on the cruise LOVES organs so we were sure to check out the enormous one here in this chapel.

On the way to the gift store, we found this very large grandfather clock.  The Husband is a huge fan of clocks so we made sure to take a picture

After perusing the gift store, we headed into town to take a look around before heading back to the boat.