June 8

Saturday
We had one of the best days yet. We had come from Salzburg to Melk, which is close to Vienna, on Friday. Saturday morning we boarded a ship to cruise down the Danube River. The weather was cloudy and sunny and there was a little threat of rain, but we went anyway. We cruised from Milk(Melk) to Cream(Krems), a distance of about 36 -40km. Sadly, they did not play the Strauss waltz called The Blue Danube once. It was through the Wachau valley which is quite beautiful with little villages, vineyards, castles, churches and great natural beauty. Once in Krems we took our bicycles and picnic lunch and started back to Melk along bicycle paths. The paths also went through the middle of the little villages, through the vineyards etc. It was so enjoyable!! For the first half we took it easy, enjoyed our lunch, the sun was shining, it was relaxing and great. We crossed the river on a ferry and once on the other side noticed a building thunderstorm. Then we began to cycle seriously and within about an hour were back to the starting point, and only got a little wet, no downpour.
This morning we went to the huge catholic church in Melk. It is uber ornate!! There were quite a few people there. We have seen so many such churches and we were curious to see what Sunday would be like.

We are now in Dachau and have just come back from the concentration camp. We wanted to go tomorrow, but found out that it is closed on Monday, so we had a rather rushed visit. What a sad place but still a valuable experience to know and see what happened there, especially since we saw the holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

Love to you all. Only a little more than a week till we come home.
George & Carla.