Bike Ride In The Storybook Countryside!

Ok let me tell you about the other day that way amazing! We left Vienna
at 7:00 in the morning and traveled to a city called Melk about an hour
away. There we went to an ancient monastery palace and took a tour through
it. We got to see wooden sculptures that are over 800 years old, old books
that the Monks studied out of, crowns, royal chalices, bones of Saints
(disgusting but interesting), and an AMAZING royal Catholic cathedral. The
cathedral was COVERED in gold. Everything was gold. It was cool.
After the palace/monastery, we rented bikes and took a 7 hour bike ride
along the Danube river from Melk to Krems. It was the most beautiful thing I
have ever experienced. I wish I had words to do it justice. The pictures
don't even show you how amazing it was. I want everyone I love to experience
this. We rode through the most beautiful country side I have EVER seen. It
was covered in vineyards, mountains, rivers, hills, flowers, wild berries,
and little towns that I honestly didn't realize existed. I'm not kidding,
these little villages looked like they were pulled from a story book. You
know the song "We danced anyways" by Deana Carter when she sings "In a happy
little foreign town, where the stars are upside-down, a half a world away".
That was all I could think while I rode through these towns. Another image I
though of to illustrate what I saw was the movie "A Walk in the Clouds". Do
you remember when the first get there and Victoria and Paul look out over
the vineyard and she says " We call it (some spanish word), it means, the
clouds". Do you remember what it looked like? That was EXACTLY what I was
riding through for 7 hours!!!! It was INCREDIBLE!!!!!
Half way through the ride we found the ruins of a castle that Richard
the Lion Heart was held captive in however many hundreds of years ago! It
was placed on top of a hill covered in flowers and wild vines that we hiked
up. I wish you could have see the castle. I took pictures, but again, they
don't to it justice. It was so cool to walk through it and imagine the
history there. I loved examining everything and understanding why they built
it certain ways. For example, the windows were really large from the inside,
but they narrowed down so that they just looked like slits from the outside.
They probably did that so they would have no problem shooting arrows out the
windows, but it would be so hard to shoot from the outside in. Oh man, the
whole thing was just so cool. There was moss everywhere and the way it was
placed overlooking the Danube on one side and hills and hills covered in
vineyards on the other was just breathtaking. I kept thinking "Where is Ben
when I want to take the most amazing engagement pictures EVER!!!???"
The whole experience was one that I will never ever forget. I am pretty
sure that when I look back on this day, I will remember it as the best of
this whole trip. I don't know how to top a day like that. I have to admit
that my butt was less pleased with the experience.....I'm still not sitting
on anything very comfortably :), but it was so worth the pain in the
butt:)!!!!! So that was my amazing day! When I got home that night I was so
exhausted because of the miles and miles I had ridden that day. I slept so
well :)! I love you so much! Thanks for letting me splurge and tell you all
that. I wish you could experience it with me!

Love, Christina