Melk Attractions

South of Melk stands Schloss Schallaburg, with a magnificent two story arcaded courtyard and terracotta decoration, the most important piece of Renaissance architecture in Lower Austria. The Schloss is now a cultural and exhibition center.

High above the Danube at the finest viewpoint in the Nibelungengau, as the section of the Danube Valley between Ybbs and Melk is known, stands the handsome Early Baroque pilgrimage church of Maria Taferl. The church is said to have been built on the site of an oak tree on which was a revered image of the Virgin. In front of the church stands a Celtic sacrificial stone.

This annual month-long festival runs from early July to early August.

The town below the Melk Benedictine Abbey is also worth a visit. The main arteries are the Rathausplatz, the Hauptstrasse (Main Street) and the Hauptplatz (Main Square), together with Kremser Strasse and Wiener Strasse. In Rathausplatz stand the old Lebzelterhaus (House for Itinerants; 1657) with painted windows (now a chemist's shop) and the Rathaus bearing the town's coat of arms. In Sterngasse will be found the old abbey tavern (1736), built by Franz Munggenast (with a stone statue of the Coronation of Our Lady). At the "Haus am Stein" there is an old vine which is listed. Of interest are the Nibelungen Memorial Tablet (Nibelungen-Gedenktafel) and parts of the old town wall in Kremser Strasse. Near the river bank are the shipping master's house and the high tide marks reached during the latest great flood catastrophes. South of Linzer Strasse stands the old post office, built in 1792 for the postmaster Freiherr von Fürnberg and now a local museum. Note also the statue of St Nepomuk in the Hauptplatz and a tablet in the Hauptstrasse commemorating Anton Bruckner.

Between Melk and Schallaburg rears the Wachberg (285m/935ft), from which there are superb views of Melk Abbey and the Danube valley.