Well, it has been extremely quiet on the travel and blog fronts around here for the past few weeks. That's because we've been gearing up and saving up for three months filled with lots of travel. Coming into May, we started looking forward to three different sets of family and friends coming to visit us for a combined total of five weeks! Talk about getting your love tank filled :)
The middle of May brought a visit from my oldest sister, brother-in-law, and niece, and we had an action packed week while they were here. One of our first excursions was a cruise on the Danube River to the Weltenburg Abbey. It is a Benedictine monastery founded by either Irish or Scottish monks around the year 620. It is said to be the oldest monastery in Germany. This had been on my "want to do" list for quite some time, and it did not disappoint.
We started our journey in the city of Kelheim where we hopped aboard a ferry headed for the abbey. The ride up the Danube was absolutely beautiful, and the weather could not have been more perfect.
The building you see at the top of the cliff is the Hall of Liberation which Laurel & I visited earlier this year.
There's my sister enjoying the view!
These cliffs were home to some cave dwellers many, many years ago.
At the end of our 40 minute ferry ride, the Weltenburg Abbey came into view. Beautiful!
On the grounds of the abbey, you'll find a couple of souvenir shops, a restaurant, and a brewery, but the star of the show is the abbey church which was built between 1716 and 1739. The church is dedicated to Saint George and is built in the Baroque style. I think all of our jaws dropped when we walked into the church. It is just stunning!
There's Saint George slaying the dragon.
The ceiling fresco was just incredible.
Oh, the pipes!
Funny story...we were accompanied on our ferry ride by a large tour group of mostly older Americans. Just as we got into the abbey church, they came swarming in, led by a small, non-American, elderly woman who was directing them to sit in the pews so that she could tell them about the church. Well, needless to say, we got swept into the midst of this group and took our places on one of the back pews. The good news was that the tour guide was speaking in English, but the bad news was that she was speaking softly into a microphone that the tourists were picking up in the earpieces they were wearing. This didn't help us at all...lol! After the woman was finished speaking, we hung around to make more pictures, along with several people from the tour group. This little tour guide woman, thinking we were part of the group, insisted that we come stand in a specific spot in the church, look up at the fresco, and take a picture of the gentleman who looks to be leaning over the edge. We had no idea who he was at the time, but we later googled it to discover that this man and the man painted to the left of him were the Asam brothers who built the church. We thought it was quite interesting that they incorporated themselves into this beautiful fresco, forever leaving their mark.
Before we boarded the ferry back to Kelheim, there was one thing we needed to do...dip our hands in the Danube River. Our girls didn't quite understand the attraction, but my sister and I both play piano, and one of the pieces we both played years ago was "The Blue Danube Waltz". I guess we both always wondered what the Danube would really look like. When there's a song written about a place, it always seems quite magical.
Blue? Not quite, but it was very cold and clear :)
This was just a perfect afternoon trip that everyone enjoyed, and the best part was that it was spent with family!
