Melk Abbey

Stand on the terrace for a moment and feel the wind come up off the Danube. Below you, the river moves slow and grey-green through the Wachau valley. Behind you, a long wall of warm yellow plaster runs on and on, broken only by rows of white-framed windows. Somewhere above, bells sound the hour. This is Melk Abbey, a working Benedictine monastery set on a rock high above the town.

That rock has been a place of power for a very long time. In the Middle Ages it was a stronghold of the Babenbergs, the noble family who ruled this part of Austria before the Habsburgs. In 1089, a Babenberg margrave named Leopold the Second gave the site to Benedictine monks. The Benedictines follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, a sixth-century guide to a life of prayer, work and study. Monks have lived here, more or less without a break, for more than nine hundred years.

Here is the first surprise. The building you see today is not medieval at all. Almost everything around you belongs to the eighteenth century. In the early 1700s, an ambitious abbot named Berthold Dietmayr decided to rebuild the entire monastery. He hired the architect Jakob Prandtauer, a master builder from the Tyrol. Work ran for roughly three decades. After Prandtauer died, his relative Joseph Munggenast carried the project to completion.

The style they chose is Baroque. Baroque is the dramatic art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, full of curves, gold, painted skies and theatrical light. Here, it had a clear purpose. The abbey was meant to show the glory of God, the strength of the Catholic Church, and the bond between the monastery and the emperor in Vienna. From the river, travellers saw this huge golden building on its cliff and understood that message without a single word.

Inside, a series of rooms leads you through that message step by step. The Imperial Wing once housed visiting emperors and their courts. Today the long corridor holds the abbey museum, which tells the story of the monastery across its many centuries. Look out for portraits of Habsburg rulers along the walls. Look too for treasures from the abbey's past, such as the Melk Cross, a precious medieval reliquary cross that is shown only on special occasions.

Next comes the Marble Hall, a grand room for feasts and receptions. Your eyes go straight to the ceiling. The painter Paul Troger covered it with an allegory, a picture story with a hidden meaning. Here, the goddess Athena guides humanity from darkness toward reason and light. Now the second surprise. Much of the marble in this hall is not real stone. It is painted plaster, made to look like costly marble. Baroque builders loved this kind of skilled illusion.

From the Marble Hall you step outside onto a curved balcony. This is the terrace where you stood at the start. It links the two great wings at the western end of the abbey. On one side, the Danube valley opens toward the vineyards and villages of the Wachau. On the other side, the twin towers of the church rise above you. Take your time here. Many visitors rush through, but this is the spot where the whole design of the abbey becomes clear.

On the far side of the terrace waits the library. For many people, this is the heart of Melk. Tall shelves of dark wood and gold carry rows of leather spines in brown, cream and faded red. The abbey holds many thousands of books, among them hundreds of medieval manuscripts copied by hand. Above the shelves, Troger painted another ceiling, this one about faith and knowledge. The room smells faintly of old paper and wood polish.

The library has a famous echo in modern fiction. In Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose, the young narrator is a monk called Adso of Melk. The story itself takes place in an imaginary abbey in Italy, not here. But Eco gave his narrator this monastery as his home, as a tribute to its long tradition of learning. Book lovers sometimes come to Melk for that reason alone.

From the library, a spiral staircase winds down toward the church. Pause and look down the stairwell. The steps curl round and round below you, a little like the inside of a seashell. Then the church itself opens up. It shines with gold, deep red and soft ochre. The ceiling frescoes are by Johann Michael Rottmayr, one of the leading Baroque painters of his day. The high altar shows Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the patron saints of this church.

The church also keeps older memories. Here lie the remains of Saint Coloman, an Irish pilgrim. According to tradition, he was travelling to the Holy Land in the early eleventh century when local people took him for a spy and killed him. Later he was honoured as a saint, and his body came to Melk. The abbey also remembers its Babenberg founders. Their story is the reason this monastery exists at all.

Melk is not only a museum. Monks still pray here every day, and the abbey runs a school with hundreds of pupils. The abbey has also survived hard times. A serious fire damaged it in the eighteenth century, soon after the great rebuilding. Napoleon's troops passed through during the wars of the early nineteenth century. Through all of it, the community stayed. Since 2000, the abbey has been part of the Wachau Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

When you leave, walk out through the courtyards and into the abbey park. There you will find old trees, quiet paths and a small Baroque garden pavilion. Turn back once more toward the building. Look at the long yellow walls in the changing light. Listen for the bells, the voices of schoolchildren, the faint sound of boats on the river. Monks have looked at this same valley for more than nine centuries. For a few minutes, you are part of that long line.