Citified "Country" and Artsy Wine

Day 5 16 kms

Charo and I decided to have a bike-free day: see the sights around Krems, wander around its old town and at the end of the day, take our bikes on the train to Tulln. We took a taxi to Gottweig Abbey, another Benedictine monastery at the top of a steep hill. We would have had a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside but it was hidden behind drizzly fog. The monastery was yet another baroque wonder. Not as spectacular as Melk but still very impressive. It looked more like a royal palace than an abbey, with a magnificent marble stairway, the “Imperial Staircase” and beautiful wallpaper (or painted walls) in the rooms. It had even more books than did Melk but they were not displayed in the same impressive way. It had an important collection of religious engravings. I stood engrossed in front of one by Gustav Klimt depicting souls dying and ascending to heaven. Sick, decrepit bodies intertwined in a beautifully complicated composition with luminous, ascending souls.

Back in Krems, we explored a little of the old town. One walked through a massive stone arch and on the other side were small, quaint buildings and winding streets. The old town was more citified and sophisticated than the ones we had been passing through, but still very charming. We had lunch in a pretty tea-room that specialised in organic products; they had an array of organic fruit and herbal teas, very “country” chic.

Wine tasting was next, as we learned that there was a winery within walking distance. After a very long, uphill walk in the sun, we found the cooperative where wine was produced right in town. It looked factory-like and not very promising. However, it turned out to be an original and quite artistic experience.

The tour started with an overview of the vineyards around the Krems valley that were members of the cooperative. And this was a literal overview: the floor consisted of a huge map of the area on plexiglass lit up from underneath, so that we could walk from vineyard to vineyard. On the walls were pictured the varieties of grape grown in the Wachau, foremost among them Gruner Vertliner, endemic and grown only in Austria. I had actually seen rows of vines marked as such when we biked in.

The cellars that held their oldest wines were suitably dark and musty and filled with oak barrels but their newly-pressed wines were kept in modern, stainless-steel vats. These were lined up in a huge underground area that was bathed in a mysterious green light, which lessened the factory-like impression. The room that overlooked this was a combination of cellar and dining room -- the kind maybe that Dracula or the Knights Templar would dine in, sparsely lit with candles and small lamps. In the center of the long room there seemed to float a wooden table-top on which were a sculptural centerpiece, glasses and, of course, lots of bottles of wine. We were invited to taste and bring our wine glasses with us to the next room. This was another “dining room”, set for a virtual meal because the plates, food and cutlery were all projected onto the tabletops from under the tablecloths. One course would follow another, with the suggested wines, all in 2-dimension.

We proceeded out into reality, where real wine bottles were waiting to be bought. We had a really great time, aside from drinking our fill. They had made an effort to hire artists so that each room felt almost like an installation in an art gallery. However, our guide kept us rooted to the soil: her family owned several hectares of vineyards and she had been helping to harvest the grapes just that morning.

Feeling mellow, we returned to the hotel and picked up our bikes, only to learn, once we got to the station, that the only train that could take bikes had left that morning! Again, confusion and stress due to lack of information, all avoidable if we had been given complete documentation. Thankfully, the hotel receptionists were helpful, unlike the woman at the train counter, who gave us information in dribs and drabs as if one of her teeth was accompanying each item of information. Our dilemma was resolved when the tour company – curse and bless them! – said it was no problem, we could leave our bikes and they would take them to Tulln in their van in the morning.

Tulln was a drab town, not quite a city but without the charm of a country town. Val and Myrna were waiting for us there, ready for a good dinner, having biked all the way. Unfortunately, the food was the worst we’d had in a trip not noted for its culinary delights.