The Red Thread

It was fortunate that we were so close to the Abbey as I had misread the time of the English speaking tour, so we had to hustle to get ourselves ready as we had been enjoying a relaxing start to our rest day.  It was only a five minute walk up the road, though it took a few minutes to find the ticket office.  Booked into the 10:55am tour, we had time to admire the entrance to the Abbey before the guide arrived.  Unfortunately, photography was not permitted once we climbed the Imperial staircase to the Imperial Corridor.  We entered the former Imperial guest rooms which are now part of a museum, with an exhibition called ‘The Path from Yesterday to Today’ .  The guide took us through the history of the Abbey and pointed out its art treasures as well as the current tasks and activities undertaken by the monks.  We were impressed with the handwritten 73 chapters of rules that the monks continue to live by today. Perhaps it is not surprising that only 21 monks remain, though a novice recently entered the Abbey to commence his spiritual journey.  

The marble hall turned out to only have real marble in the doorway and the rest was a locally-made combination of plaster, water and colouring, polished for hours to look like marble. Work had been completed on the grand balcony so the bridge that had been built through the windows to link the two wings had been removed. There were beautiful views of the town and the Danube valley from the balcony.  

Next stop was the library with its many thousands of books and from there we entered the Baroque Abbey church.  We admired the altars and frescos, including the skeletons of unnamed saints from the Roman catacombs.  It was then time for the midday prayers which are open to the public.  Given that it was the feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we thought it fitting to join the monks in their celebration.  There were brochures available in German, so we could use google translate to read along to the 15-minute session, which was accompanied by a guitar player.  

After reading through the displays that documented the immense amount of restoration work that had been carried out on the Abbey in recent years, we entered the Abbey Park. There were interesting sculptures of birds along the walkway to the garden pavilion. The Oriental garden included a wooden pavilion and little rock cairns.

We returned to the apartment for lunch and then headed back into town to follow the Red Thread walking route that took us along the old town walls, past historical buildings and interesting crochet decorations into the Town Square with its statue of St John Nepomuk, Austria’s third most depicted saint after Mary and Joseph.  We continued past the old post office to the river. A marker showed the level of floodwaters, with the floods of 1501 being at the highest level.

We stopped off in the town centre for an icecream before returning to our accommodation for a planned lazy afternoon. Earlier in the day I had contacted our planned Friday night’s accommodation at the Smart Motel in Gars Am Kamp to see if they had a fridge only to find that they had no record of our accommodation. It seemed they had changed reservation systems earlier in the year, and our triple room booking had not been transferred to the new system.  Multiple emails and phone calls later, we received confirmation of two separate rooms, with verbal confirmation that the price remained the same.  We will see what happens when we check in tomorrow, noting that the Motel has an automated check in process. After dealing with four different people, at least we know that their phone line is staffed.     

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