We drove along the Donau (Danube) today. At one point we had to stop on a country road to allow several pheasants to pass. Yesterday it was some ducks. We could see evidence of last month's floods, including broken windows in the little shrines that show up along the road in the countryside. We visited the abbey of St. Florian, because that's where Bruckner lived for years, as the church organist. We saw the church, the organ, and his grave, but not the abbey itself because we weren't part of a group of at least six. We had lunch at a restaurant down the hill -- the Gasthof Erherzog Franz Ferdinand (the one whose assassination set of World War I).
We're spending the night in Melk at Hotel Zur Post. They have historical photographs of the town in the hallways, and I commend them for having photos of a pro-Nazi rally in the town on May 1, 1938. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. We ate wild duck, and it really was wild. There was a bit of grape shot left in it. At the end of the meal we had a homemade walnut schnapps that was excellent.
