AUSTRIA - WACHAU - UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE REGION

Wachau -

Internationally famous for its white wines (Gruner Veltliner and Riesling), which are among the best in the world, the region truly presents itself as a unique cultural setting dotted with historical towns, abbeys, churches, castles and a wealth of art-historical treasures.

The Danube and the meticulously maintained vineyards, with their famous, hand-laid stone terraces, leave their characteristic stamp on the countryside.

Melk and Gottweig abbeys form the cornerstones of the Wachau, named in 2000 to the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 2009 "National Geographic Traveler Magazine" crowned it the "most beautiful historic location".

This is one of the few places in the world that I visited 20+ years ago that has maintained its original charm. 

SPITZ - charm of the Biedermeier

Nestle amid the green vineuard-covered hillsides, this peaceful village seems like it is plucked out of an old movie. The town's emblem is the famous Tausendeimerberg, a mountain which, according to old legends, can produce a thougsan buckets of wine in the years of good grape harvests. 

I visited a local winery while in Spitz.

Did I mention the abundance of apricots, and the apricot dumplings that took your breath away!!

WEISSENKIRCHEN - the biggest wine-growing community

This is the little village where I stayed. This area represents more than one third of Wachau's total wine-growing area, spanning some 1,300 acres. One of the oldest fortified church squares in Austria is St. Michael's , first chronicled in 987. 

MELK - the baroque jewel

Towering impressively skywards above Melk's Old Town is an abbey originally built by Jakob Prantauer. The Benedictine abbey, founded in 1089, invites visitors to take an extraordinary tour through

the magnificent marble hall, the library with 85,000 volumes and 1,200 manuscripts, the terraces with views over the Danube and of course the church. 

GOTTWEIG 

this is considered to be the most magnificant staircase ever constructed....and it is....

This is a Benedictine abbey built in 1072. It burned in 1718, and was rebuilt on a grander scale. It is a masterpiece in baroque architecture. Paul Toger , one of the most famous fresco painters of the era, painted the fresco above the magnificant master staircase in 1739, painting Cahrles VI as Apollo.

This is my own version of a "selfie"!!!

The beauty of this area was gorgeous....