Sailing the Wachau Valley and seeing an Abbey

by | Dec 13, 2023 | Photography

Yesterday was a big day. We did a bunch of stuff that basically wore us out. And we had even more scheduled that we ended up canceling due to my getting a horrible headache and not being able to get warm.

First, the Valley

Our schedule on Tuesday morning was to sail down the beautiful Wachau Valley. This is a stretch of the Danube with some pretty amazing villages, castles, monasteries and low bridges. The best way for me to take you there is to show you my photos and have you read the captions, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The village of Krems

We reached the end of the valley early. It was like we had gone through at jet speed, and as the Captain explained, we kind of had. Because of the rapid snow melt and the rain, the river was running very fast, so we were being pushed much faster than normal. He even told us that, at one point, he was running the engines in reverse to slow us down. We were supposed to arrive in the village of Krems just in time to board the buses that would take us to Gottweig Abbey, high above the valley. But because of the river’s speed, we were docked in Krems almost an hour early. So they let us get off and wander the town.

I decided to take a walk because the sky was finally clearing up. Besides, I wanted to see if those were two churches or one. It turned out to be two, as you can see in my photographic journey in Krems. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

High on a hill was the Gottweig Abbey…”Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo” (think The Sound of Music—I couldn’t resist)

Our afternoon tour (for pretty much the entire ship) was a visit to Gottweig Abbey, which sits on a very high hill above Krems. It is really a pretty impressive place. While we toured Gottweig, the ship moved downstream to Tulln, where we would meet up with them later. More about that after I tell you about Gottweig in photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After Gottweig, we had a bus ride to meet the ship in Tulln, where they would pick us up for about a two-hour sail into Vienna. We were scheduled to go to the Opera House to see a performance of Mozart and Strauss. But by the time we left Gottweig, I was starting to feel incredibly tired and strangely cold. I also had a really bad headache. This morning (while writing this), I had to ask Kathleen about that 45-minute bus ride because, to be honest, I slept through the entire ride. We got on board, and I went to bed, hoping that a nap in a warm bed would help. I got up for dinner an hour later, feeling slightly better, but by the time dinner was over, I was done. We had to skip the concert, and I went to bed at 8:00. Slept for almost a solid 12 hours (which is really out of character for me), and that’s why I wasn’t up and writing yesterday to get a post online. Sorry.

Later, I figured that I must have been zapped by all the time I had spent standing on the upper deck taking photos as we sailed down the Wachau Valley. I got so cold I just never warmed up. It was the temperature as much as the wind chill. What a guy will do for his art ?.

One final thing…

Something has been bugging me on this trip. The trip to the Abbey really helped me to figure it out. I want to say up front that I know that the beautiful cathedrals, incredible abbeys, and marvelous churches represent the art of the times they were built, but frankly, they bother me. The amount of money, time and effort that went into building them at the expense of the poor who had nothing while the rich (and sadly the churches) drained the economy to build these edifices just ticks me off. And the amount of money that is currently keeping them going while the poor and homeless are starving in the cold…I have no words. When I heard the guide tell us that this HUGE abbey with hundreds of rooms was “overbooked—we have too many monks here now for what our facilities can handle,” my first thought was, “there must be hundreds of monks living here—good for them for taking in so many. Then she said there were 34. THIRTY-FOUR???!!! That was it for me. This abbey, with more than 30 buildings and hundreds of thousands of square feet, can’t hold 34 monks. Are you kidding me? Someone asked her why that was overcrowding, and she said it was because in the sacristy nave where the monks sit during church services, there are only 30 chairs, and having an extra four monks means that some have to sit on regular chairs—the height of arrogance. These people are supposed to be serving their god. They took an oath of poverty. Sure, they don’t drive fancy cars, but their lifestyle is pretty good. All day, they can contemplate heaven, pray for hours, and drink the wine that others make in their abbey…sounds like a pretty good life to me.

And it’s not just that. When we went into Vienna yesterday and heard about the things that have been built just since WWII, and I think about the homeless or just the number of people who are killing themselves working 12 hours a day in a coffee shop, it truly bothers me.

It all reminded me of when we visited the Russian Summer Palaces while in St. Petersburg. When you see those, you understand why the Russian Revolution happened.

Ok, I will get off my soapbox now. I just wanted to explain why I am not as impressed as I probably should be by the churches, cathedrals and abbeys. The ones I like best are in small towns and are kept up by local parishioners. Like the ones I saw when I was in Krems.

I grew up in Austria, and for me, real comfort food is Wiener Schnitzel. Wiener Schnitzel and mashed potatoes because it reminds me of my youth… It reminds me of when I grew up, and it feels very comforting.  —Wolfgang Puck