Thursday, January 3, 2019: St Valentin back to Bratislava: 

We were not pushed to get on the road early this morning.  Our first destination is the Melk Abby where public tours begin at 11:00.  After a leisurely breakfast we drove to Melk. Melk is where we stayed for New Year’s Eve, but the following morning we did not want to wait around until 11:00 am for a tour Jan 1.

The Melk Abby is a “must see” if you are in the area.  Our tour guide spoke wonderful English, and she was extremely knowledgeable.  There is so much history to be discussed, with displays and models to show the changes through time.  The Monastery/Abby was begun by St. Benedict in 1089. The current Abbey (Monastery) is home to 30 monks ranging from 22 to 97 years old.  The Abbey has 500 rooms, of which all are used. They have a school for 900 local students and 100 teachers.  The church is one of the most magnificent we have seen on this trip.  Everything seems to be “dripping” with gold.  They have huge libraries, which at one time housed the original Guttenberg Bible, before it was sold to raise needed funds for restoration.  The Bible is currently at Yale University.  This is an impressive edifice overlooking the village of Melk and the Danube River.

Reusable Coffin

Library

Our next destination was Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna.  Thanks to Google Maps we drove directly to the Palace. By the time we arrived it was blowing snow.  Luckily, we found a parking spot within easy walking distance. The earliest tour of the Palace was 3:20, giving us plenty of time for strolling the Christmas market located in the large courtyard in front of the Palace, in the snow.

We were pleased to know the Palace tour is self-guided with the help of free audio players.  There was a crowd going through the Palace, but you could spend as much time in each room as you needed.  It is a beautiful Palace with all the history of the Habsburg dynasty.  We bought tickets for the Grand Tour, enabling us to see more than the ceremonial rooms.

By the time we left the Palace at least 1 ½ inches of snow had accumulated, and it was still coming down. Again, the streets were congested, but with the help of GPS we got out of Vienna as quickly as possible.  We did not know what we would encounter on our drive east to Bratislava, SK, but we drove out of snow very quickly. 

As we had known, our friends had family with them from Doha, Qatar, so we needed to stay in a hotel this time while in Bratislava.  We drove directly to our reserved hotel, just down the street from our friend’s apartment.  Our last meal was eaten at the same restaurant we had our first dinner, after arriving in Europe.  The Loft Hotel & Fabrika restaurant is a wonderful place in Bratislava. 

After dinner we walked to our friends for dessert of birthday cake and to pick up the extra suitcase, we brought from Mt Pleasant, with gifts for them. We are now taking gifts back to Mt Pleasant!

The last job tonight is pre-checking into our flight, repacking suitcases with fragile gifts and getting to bed, as the alarms are set for 5:30 am.  We are flying from Vienna Airport, which is a 40-plus minute drove from Bratislava.

Cherie is leaving from Bratislava airport on January 5.  She will be spending tomorrow with our friends and staying overnight with them tomorrow. The gals (high school classmates) are going for a massage, spa, lunch and whatever else they have planned.