Category Archives: Austria Vienna. City of Mozart. And waltzes. And that other Strauss: Richard – known for his operas, and familiar to my generation thanks to his fanfare from Thus Spake Zarathustra that was used in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. But when I think of Vienna, I always think of Billy Joel, or of Leonard Cohen’s melancholy three-quarter time […]  It’s hard to imagine how the Wachau Valley could be any prettier! “The Wachau” is the name given the narrow gorge where the Danube River runs between the Bohemian Massif on the northwest, and the Dunkelsteiner Woods to the southeast. For roughly fourty kilometres between the Lower Austrian cities of Melk and Krems, the hilltops are dotted with castle ruins and the hillsides are covered […]  It was Day Five of our canal-boat cruise down the Danube River: Early in the morning, our boat docked in the tiny city of Melk (population: 5,257) in Austria. Melk is is best known for it’s magnificent Benedictine abbey, first established in 1089 when Leopold II, Margrave of Austria, gave one of his castles to a group of Benedictine monks. Newer […] |
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