exploring the Austrian countryside and first day of Budapest



Inside the Melk Monastery cathedrale

The next day we had an adventure to the countryside of Austria after a fun couple days in Vienna. We started off with an hour drive to the Melk Monastery. It was pretty huge Benedictan monastery which included a giant library, artifacts, famous paintings and musical manuscripts, and a beautiful chapel. We had a tour guide that really helped us understand the monastery, that was created in 1089. It was one of the most famous monasteries in the world and somehow escaped being destroyed through the World Wars and during Emporer Joseph's reign in the late 18th century. My favorite part was the view and the library (reminded me of Beauty and the Beast.)

After the tour, we took lots of pictures of the beautiful view and then ate at a delicious restaurant where I had Chicken Cordon Bleu (not Austrian haha) beer and apple strudel then we were on our way to the medieval town of Durnstein.

Melk Monastery

It was even further into the countryside near the Danuabe river, and we passed some awesome houses with vineyards built into the cliffs.  That is one of the traditions in that area of the Austria.
 In Durnstein we walked around the town and up the cliffs to the Durnstein Castle. It was used as a prison and actually held King Richard the Lionhearted (of the Robin Hood Story) in the 11th century. We had some of the best ice cream sundae I have had.... vanilla ice cream with apricots, apricot schnapz and fresh raspberries. It was amazing and a great way to compensate for a long walk up the cliffs. I bought some souvenirs including some Austrian schnapps, postcards and a bizarre chocolate bar with mustard and ketchup, apparently it is supposed to be delicious though!

Me at Durnstein Castle.. overlooking the Danuabe

Town of Krems

We then went to the small town of Krems were we able to explore some of the shops, Churches, and parks. It was so beautiful and it was nice to see a nicer/quieter side of Austria. Krems was a little more modern than Durnstein but there was a medieval church that had statues of Stations of the Cross outside. We went to one of the most famous bio-dynamic farms after some exploration, who is run by our Professor's wife's sister. (look up bio dynamic, its a really interesting concept.)

biodynamic farm

It is basically organic growing on steroids haha. It is all about the energy of the sun, the cow whose manure is used to grow the grapes etc etc. We took a tour of the vineyard and then had a great night of wine tasting and eating some authentic Austrian food. We tried Blood Sausage, Pork with Sauerkraut, carrot salad, Weinerschnitzel, sweet jam spread among many others and drank lots of wine... I even bought a bottle :) That night we took it pretty easy but we still went to our favorite bar of 1516 and their awesome drink specials, although we knew the next day we got to sleep on the bus for a while.

We woke up nice and early to make our way to Budapest. We had to make a pitstop at another bio dynamic farm on the Austria/Hungarian border because someone got sick. But after some issues we finally made our way to Budapest and got there about 7 p.m. We walked around by the river and got a delicious Hungarian meal, of beef and veggie goulash, dumplings with chicken, tomatoes sauce, bacon and garlic. It was really good and we followed it up with a Hungarian beer. The pedestrian street where we walked was lined with shops, bars, restaurants and of course a McDonald's. I decided to stay in for the night as it was Zach's birthday, we skyped instead :)