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You are here: Home / RO-Archive / Around the World, where to go: Melk, Austria, Europe’s Oldest Library and the Melk Abbey


Around the World, where to go: Melk, Austria, Europe’s Oldest Library and the Melk Abbey

January 15, 2008 By Bobby

This post is part of my Around the World series. Read more about what this series here. I haven’t been to this place, but I intend to go.

One of my readers suggested that if I choose to go to Austria I should not forget to visit the city of Melk.

Melk Abbey seen from below

Library and Abbey

Situated about 150km from Vienna, one the bank of the Danube, with a great scenery (see the photos below), Melk is not really part of the usual tourist path, from what I can see, but it really has some incentives: first of all, here you can find Europe’s oldest library. The library is part of the Stift Melk, a massive baroque Benedictine abbey, with quite a history behind it.

The abbey was founded in 1089, the library was part of a school founded in the 12th century, a lot of manuscipts being actually produced there. The abbey you can see today was built between 1702 and 1736.

Now, there still is a school there, with approx. 900 students (maybe I can take my master’s degree there :D )

An interesting thing is that Umberto Eco, in his famous novel “The name of the Rose”, named one of the characters “Adso von Melk”, as a tribute to the abbey and its library.

Usually, when I go somewhere, I try to visit a lot of locations, both cultural and less cultural (well, can we call EuroDisney cultural? ), but Melk is also attractive to me because I intend to live several days in locations that are not important tourist locations (like Vienna or Salzburg), to get a taste of the way people with a different cultural background live day to day. And, who knows, hotels there might be a lot cheaper. So, if they have wireless, Melk, here I come :)

P.S.: I almost forgot, there is also a castle there. Do you know similar places I should go to? Small cities with great history? Not in Austria necessarilly.

Pictures below, after the jump.

Church in Melk, view from aboveMelk Abbey Library (door)Melk Abbey Library with fresqueMelk Abbey Library with fresqueMelk Abbey Library with fresque (great colors)Melk Abbey seen from belowMelk, Austria - overview (with Danube)Melk, Austria, city overview

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