Melk to Durstein

Day 5 of our Danube River Cruise.   Our morning started out with a tour of the Benedictine Monastery in Melk.  The baroque architecture of the monastery was beautiful.  The Monastery just dominates the surrounding village.  It was quite hard to get a photo of the whole place!  My extra photo is of the Abbey's bell tower.  We wandered a little exploring the village of Melk and found a yarn shop with a bike covered in yarn that you can see in one of my extra photos.  The afternoon was one of our highlights of our whole trip.  We biked along the Danube from the city of Melk to Durnstein about 20 miles.  While we had some much needed exercise, we enjoyed the beautiful views of the Wachau Valley, romantic villages and lovely vineyards.  Our guide congratulated us saying we were his best group of the summer because we kept a good pace, followed directions and had no crashes!  He was such a nice person.....I am sure he said the same thing to all his tour groups!