Cesky Krumlov and Regensburg

I left the boat at Linz on a coach and rejoined it at Passau. Nick stayed on board and sailed to Passau, following with a walk around the town. We stopped briefly at Rosenberg, a pretty village on the river, and were reminded it was May Day by the maypole.

Maypole

Rosenberg on a quiet stretch of river

Cesky Krumlov is presented as the quintessential medieval village and it certainly is charming, though, as our guide said, so much of it has been given over to catering for the tourists that most residents now live on the outskirts and commute into the town for work. So there is a slightly Disneyfied air to the place, though the buildings are genuinely old…just retouched a bit perhaps.

The entrance is through a multilevel arched gate which looks Roman but is not. The Romans never crossed the Danube for settlements. Surprisingly, much of the original background is Celtic.Here the palaces are connected by this high walkway and inside are the towers of the nobility and the churches with their spires.

Entry gate with palace walkways above	Tower from which one mad king threw his wife
The large castle	Village rooves and the church

Within the town buildings have been repainted and repurposed to serve the legends and the tourists. This hotel was once the house of a drunkard, so legend goes, so a monkey painted in one window indicates this. I doubt it would have been so advertised at the time. Now a pretty place to stop on the square



The palace walkways make a great place from which to get panoramas of the village with its surrounding waterway


Back to the ship at Passau though no time for me to explore it.

An afternoon sail to Regensburg, past the Temple of Valhalla, an incongruous copy of the Parthenon,


was followed by a walking tour of the city. The guide set a cracking pace which took its toll the next day on knees and energy levels.

Regensburg was much more a city in its own right, very chic and with gorgeous shops. Its mighty cathedral was marred by the time it took to build, good times characterised with white limestone and worse times by yellowish sandstone. Now, as they clean the facade of centuries of soot and grime, they are left with a  patchwork of stone that not even its lacy spires can save from ugliness. However, I was rather taken with St Peter clutching his keys while inside his boat.


Inside there is lovely glass, yet to be cleaned in most cases, and a beautiful altar. Soaring Gothic lines are appealing and they have kept the interior decoration rather spare. It may yet be beautiful and glowing when the cleaning is finished.



The architecture was really remnants of older times, with towers beside houses in the style of San Gimignano in Italy “I am richer than you because my tower is taller” and some charming courtyard houses preserved, and now used to house students.



Again, the signs for the older shops were unusual and pretty.


The municipal buildings such as the town hall and very old hotels showed the importance of the city. Even kings stayed here.

Figures on the town hall door mean defend and attack

The grand hotel and tower

Regensburg official measures which seem bigger than those of other towns

The charming dirndl dress which is still worn by inhabitants on special occasions was on show in a shop.


By the time we staggered back to the boat, about a mile from the centre, we were pretty well ready for the nursing home. So while tomorrow is meant to be Nuremberg, for us it will be a rest day.

Durnstein and Melk Abbey

A very busy day today with two towns to visit off the boat. In both cases local guides take smaller groups of people around so you have some idea of what you are seeing. As a plus, cruising through the Wachau Valley with its small towns and old castles.
Durnstein is a lovely small town on the banks of the Danube, famed for an ornate Baroque church tower that looks like it was made by Wedgewood, the pretty church itself, and white wine. the delicious Gruner Veldtliner. They also grow apricots due to a warm microclimate, and make apricot brandy, jam, liqueur, and anything else they can think of. Only about 900 inhabitants and I think the summer river tourists probably saved the economy of the place.
We had a wine and brandy tasting, a visit to the church and a wander around the pretty streets now mostly filled with shops, liquor sales and tourist souvenirs.

Durnstein castle ruins and Clairite monastery walls	Durnstein street
Houses and church tower	Interior of the church
High altar of the church with choir stalls for the monks	The monastery and tower from the water

Everywhere one sees the typical street signs for hotels and bars, ornate and distinctive.

Forging on through the Wachau Valley there were lovely little villages and several castles to be seen.

Fortified church in the Wachau Valley

Aggstein Castle

Back onto the boat and on to Melk Abbey, arriving via the well planned coaches and with our own guides again within the abbey. Set on a bluff high above the medieval village it was well placed to be defended if needed.

 

The place is still an active Benedictine abbey with 30 monks. Through an impressive courtyard and the renovated facade, now in Baroque style of course, to a quiet room where the rule and philosophy were explicated, then to the treasury with a few well exhibited chalices, crucifixes and monstrances then onto the library, still a very active one for research and for new acquisitions as well. The beautiful bound volumes were exquisitely done but no photos allowed in this space.

Jewelled cross

The vast dining room for guests

 

We learned that monasteries had to be big to accommodate all the guests who might visit, including the emperor and his retinue, so there were long corridors of guest rooms, quite apart from the monks quarters, which we did not visit of course.

Entrance archway to the first courtyard

A guest corridor. There were at least six

The church itself is in high Baroque style with lots of gold and curlicues. Click on the picture for an enlargement

The nave and altar

The high altar

 

We wandered back down steps and through the village to return to the boat.

 

Melk township from the abbey

There was a concert after dinner but we were exhausted and went to bed. This is not a relaxing holiday if you want to see everything provided.

 

Tomorrow: Passau,a side trip to Cesky Krumlov, but a rest day for Nick

Vienna

We expected a city that demonstrated culture and a love of the arts. We didn’t expect quite that much grandeur, especially in the architecture, nor so many palaces, such a history of aristocracy versus industrialists nor so many effects of royalty and royal decrees that affected everything from religion to open spaces to the design of city streets.

Our walking tour of the town was led by a guide who was obviously deeply immersed in the history of architectural styles and also on the influence of royalty on the city, but who was actually as boring as bat shit. We did at least get treated to the story of Sacher torte and had the coffee houses pointed out. Plus a few lovely shops.

Chandelier shop

Cake shop

We had a little time to visit St Stephen’s Cathedral, learn the story of the plague monument, peek at the Lipizzan horses in their stables while being overwhelmed by the mass of information about the ages and stages of architecture, of which Baroque, with its balanced designs and OTT gilding seemed to be the dominant form.

The nave of St Stephen’s	The emperor on the plague monument showing his humility
Mozart coffee house	Lipizzan horses, born black but turn white by 10 years

After dinner we dressed up a little and were taken to the Leichenstein City Palace for a concert of Austrian music, including, of course, the Blue Danube. This was the real thing my friends, a genuine palace belonging to the family (one of about 6 they own) recently restored at a cost of E100,000,000. Oh my!!! While no photos were allowed of the orchestra, we could take photos in the several rooms we used. Let them speak for themselves.

Entry hall	Welcome salon
Hall	Performance room

I Googled the family later. They own a bank, as one does. Their personal fortune in E4 billion. The bank is worth E7.1 billion. Truly a night to remember.

The next morning we selected a visit to the Schonbrunn Palace, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs of whom Maria Theresia was probably the most famous; in between being Empress she bore 16 children who she then married off to various royal houses in Europe, including Marie Antoinette to the King of France. Oops!

As expected the place is ginormous with extensive grounds and gardens. We saw only a small selection of the rooms and were not allowed to take photographs inside, but Baroque again proved the dominant motif, along with quite a large amount of Chinese material, porcelain and lacquer and delicate drawings. No one in Europe was making porcelain at that time so it was truly a luxury item.
A charabanc trip around the gardens completed the visit. Lovely high clipped hedges, a massive fountain or two, acres of raked gravel and mown grass; that sort of thing.

The front of the palace

Gloriosa; the monument on the hill

Driving through the gardens

The high hedges

We finished in the city where Nick and I opted for a quick Italian lunch followed by a trip to the Albertina Museum to see some of the precious drawings from their works on paper, rarely displayed. They included Durer’s “Hare” and the famous “Praying hands”. They advertised on their steps to lovely effect.



A little touch of home: This is an apartment block designed by Harry Seidler; Austrian by birth, Australian by choice.



Tomorrow: Durnstein and Melk Abbey