Here is a link to today's photos.
See today's route in a web browser.
Here is a link to today's KML file (e.g., for use with Google Earth).
Here is a link to yesterday's diary.
Here is a link to the index of the days of this holiday.
Originally I planned to do the trip from Aggstein to Melk in two days doing Aggstein to Schoenbuehel today and Schoenbuehel to Melk on Saturday. However, on a Saturday (when children are at school), the first bus in the morning down the south side of the Danube leaves Krems at 1150 and gets in to Schoenbuehel at 1238. This doesn't leave much time to do any walking especially seeing I want to catch the 1615 boat back from Melk to Krems.
So I've decided to try to walk from Aggstein to Melk today. Today's route is in three bits:
Given the 0945 bus arrives in Aggstein at 1020, I should have about an hour to look around Melk before the boat leaves for Krems at 1615.
When I get off the bus at Aggstein, I take a photo of Ruine Aggstein as it is looking down at me from the hillside near by.
Close by to the main road is the Aggstein labyrinth. I'd seen signs for it yesterday and the paths of the labyrinth have been carved out of a field of corn.
There is a waymark near to the start saying that the walk to Aggsbach Dorf is going to take 30 minutes. When I get there, I find that the route through Aggsbach Dorf is through some posh houses. On one of these houses Evelyn (presumably the owner) keeps updating her age by adding + 1 each year. Currently, the tally is 31 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 34. Soon after I reach the main 33 road again.
I take a photo of the start of the route from Aggsbach Dorf. It's situated between a post box and a hotel/restaurant. The path ahead is deeply-leaved and steep. After a lot of climbing, a T-junction is reached a grassy path goes left and right. There is no waymark for my direction of travel but the waymarks for people walking in the opposite direction make it obvious to turn left. Another junction is reached and I bear right. Another T junction is then reached. Although there are no signs on the junction there are plenty visible through the bushes on the left.
Although on most days I've been map-reading a lot and keeping track of where I am, after a while today I give up: there are numerous paths not all of which are on the maps and it's difficult to keep up. So instead I rely on the waymarking.
Shortly thereafter I reach Bildbuche where there is a seat under a religious artefact. I use the seat to enjoy some elevenses: a Mars bar, a banana and a Gaterade. Bildbuche is not marked on my two maps but it's roughly where the letter t is in the word Hohenwathberg.
The path away from the seat is not particularly obvious: it's not along the main paths but eventually I meet up with some waymarks.
At Hohenwarter Hoehe, there is a choice of routes to Berging. The Rother book takes an off-road route which I think is waymarked as Route 2 whereas I take the road down to Berging.
In Berging, I leave the road to take path 653 down to Schoenbuehel.
Here I take two photos of Schoenbuehel's Schloss.
From here, I take the cycle path (alongside the south bank of the Danube) to Melk. To relieve some of the boredom, I once again listen to some evensongs from Merton College.
As my photos show, the town of Melk is dominated by its Abbey. It is a Benedictine abbey and today's buildings were built between 1702 and 1736 (Wikipedia). I also take a photo of a church that's in Melk's main street.
The boat back to Krems arrives at Melk at about 1545. My remaining photos are taken on board the boat. Here I meet Li Chung who is from South Korea.
About half way (at Spitz), the passengers of the Wachau have to get off and then get on the Prince Eugen for the rest of the trip back to Krems. Likewise, the people going the opposite way (from Krems to Melk) get off the Prince Eugen to get on the Wachau as it returns to Melk. Seeing only one boat can dock at Spitz at a time, this involves quite a lot of manoevuring: first the Wachau docks and we get off; then the PE docks and its passengers get off and we get on; then the W docks and the other passengers get on board. One other complication is that the boats have to do lots of 180 degree turns some of which are obvious, but others look unnecessary but are presumably because of safety reasons: maybe they are not allowed to dock with their stern upstream.
I enjoy the boat trip: it takes about 2 hours and as the boat passes the various villages I relive many of my week's experiences.