I didn’t study literature, so I don’t remember much about Shakespeare. And I don’t really know much history, though now I am feeling rather a lot of regret about that. I do know a thing or two about art history, though. That’s not saying much, though, because when it comes to this particular Venus, every art student knows her name and her place of birth.
Venus was found in a startlingly pretty little village near the Danube about 60 miles west of Vienna. We stood on the location where she’d been liberated from the earth and ashes and looked out over the river. Flowers poured out of window boxes in the village below. In the middle of town was a blue and white inn called Gasthof zum Venus von Willendorf. There’s a statue of Venus up at the site where she was found though if you know her, you find the likeness a little odd. It’s about four feet tall and on a pedestal and Venus herself was tiny, you could fold her in the palm of your hand.
Durnstien is a little further up the terraced Wachau Valley and where Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner until he was found by his faithful servant, Blondel. Being found wasn’t the best possible deal because he was held ransom then for a whole lot longer until the payoff came and maybe paid to build all the handsome houses that line the cobble-stoned streets of Durnstein.
We also visited Melk, the site of that famous Umberto Eco novel, The Name of the Rose. I don’t remember hardly anything about the book, which I did read because in spite of my ignorance about history, I am a very patient reader. I won’t read it again, however, my plan is to rent the movie. I do remember a whole lot about a library that was, in my imagination, vast and labyrinthine. The actual library is two rooms, lined to the ceiling with books, or at least that’s the bit they let the tourists in to see. It did have secret staircases, though you’d have to be a medieval dolt not to find them. It was impressive nonetheless and we shared it with two members of the order. One chatted with the other about Mozart’s visit to the monastery while humming a little tune. Now I will imagine him every time I am in a pub or bar called œThe Singing Monk.
We made one additional stop to the nearly silent village of Schallenburg. A medieval church sits on the edge of the vineyards there, a faded sundial on one face. Some of the buildings had scraffito decorations around the deep windows, nearly all of them had the flower boxes bursting with red and white and purple begonias and petunias and other plants ending in the letter ‘a’. Every now and then a car would roll through town and we’d press up against the side of a building to let it pass.
On the way out of Durnstein en route back to the autobahn, we bought some apricot jam and tasted some ˜Sturm.’ The woman selling the goodies told us she’d pour the ˜ladies sturm’ — it’s a little bit sweeter than the regular stuff. The men’s brand will have you singing the Macarena in no time, which was already happening just up the road at a bar that sat right below the cemetery. I kept walking through jokes about things that were loud enough to wake the dead, but why go after the easy prey?
The vines are heavy with grapes in all the vineyards we passed and the trees seem to be bursting with fruit. Fall is overly abundant in the Wachau. Tour boats chug upstream “ many appear to be carrying no one. We traveled by car to avoid the twelve hour round trip from Vienna to Melk and back and that turned out to be the right thing to do because it gave us the leisure to stop and wander. The only better way to see the Wachau is by bicycle because there is a perfect trail that runs parallel to the river and in and out of all the villages. I can see how grand it would be to roll along the river, stopping for snack or to stay the night in a winery guesthouse little river side inn. Loads of cyclists do just that and I, who have no business doing so, envy them.
—
Before I forget, I had a spectacular sweet at the Demel, the grand palace of cake. Lemme see if I can reconstruct it for you…The base was that ever present shortbread crust. On top of that was a layer of something chocolaty, maybe a little cake with ground nuts. On top of that was a jelly full of sweet and sour red currants. The whole thing was faced on both ends by what I guess could be called flying buttresses of meringue. There were other cakes on the table, of course, and they were mighty fine, included the condensed truffle cake, but mine was a thing of wonder. A thing of wonder.