HISTORY UNFOLDS
We’re sailing eastwards, on a journey from Germany to Austria, through Slovakia and into Hungary, and have already enjoyed a mini Oktoberfest with plenty of beer and oompah that the locals in Vilshofen put on specially for AmaWaterways’ guests.
We’ve also hiked up to a fortress overlooking the town of Passau, where the ruling prince-bishops lived until Napoleon arrived in 1803 and kicked them out and now, here we are, peeking inside a baroque Benedictine abbey that’s less sack cloth and ashes and more royal palace with its gilded statues, marble halls, frescoed ceilings and a vast library of some 100,000 books, many of them priceless.
The abbey is in Melk, a small town at the western end of the Wachau. Back on board we gulp down lunch and race up to the top deck ready for three hours of panoramic heaven as AmaMagna navigates Wachau’s gentle bends in the river past an ever-changing landscape of steep cliffs and rolling hills.
Go back far enough, as in thousands of years, and those hills were mountains as high as the Himalayas, but they were eroded over the centuries as the river pushed through, creating the spectacular valley we have now. It runs as far as Krems, a distance of 24 miles (38km) away, but we’ll be stopping just short of that today, in the little town of Dürnstein.
Clockwise from opposite top left:
A spectacular aerial view of the medieval riverside town of Weissenkirchen in the Wachau Valley A panoramic glimpse of the Danube at Spitz, a market town on the river’s left bank; perched on a rocky outcrop, the majestic baroque Melk Abbey is one of the river cruise’s historical highlights; the Benedictine abbey’s richly frescoed spiral staircase connects the library and the chapel; the vividly hued city of Passau’s skyline – including baroque landmarks St Stephen’s Cathedral, with its iconic onion-shaped domes, and the pretty pastel-pink St Paul’s Church – captured in the early evening light
a guided cycle ride from Melk to Dürnstein – a distance of 19 miles (32km).
We pass islands with rocky beaches, perfect for a cooling paddle on a hot summer’s day, and ramshackle ferries attached to cables across the river that use the current (the water speeds through the valley at about 7-8km/h) to convey six or so cars at a time over the water, as well as hikers and cyclists (there are no bridges in the valley).
Like the Rhine Gorge, the valley is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and even has its own legend, this one about seven rabbits on the roof of St Michael’s church, Wehrkirche. The story goes that during one really bad winter the snow was so deep the rabbits hopped unknowingly onto the roof, where they fell asleep. When they woke, the snow had melted and they were marooned. There really are rabbits on the roof – stone ones of course – that you can just about see with the naked eye from the ship’s deck. With no better explanation for their presence, I’m going with the snow story.
Clockwise from above:
The narrow streets of charming medieval village Dürnstein are lined with emporiums selling the region’s delicious produce; the village’s lofty abbey, established rebuilt in a baroque style in 1710, stands with its whiteand-blue clock tower Schönbühel Castle dates back to the 12th century
Opposite:
walk around Dürnstein, a delightful medieval village that has just 900 inhabitants and loads of shops where you can taste (and buy) the local wine and apricot liquor. There’s also a grand abbey with a beautiful baroque blue-and-white tower. “The colours of heaven and sky,” our guide Christine explains.
We taste more spoils of the Wachau at an exclusive wine, music and sing-song at a winery in Spitz that evening, before bidding farewell to the peace and quiet of the valley and returning to the hustle and bustle of city life on calls into Vienna, Bratislava and, finally, Budapest. It’s been an incredible cruise of contrasts that even the Rhine can’t beat.