Melk & Seegrotte
- Kyra Menzel
- Jul 7, 2018
- 3 min read
Not many people know this, but my family has a wonderful connection to Austria. When my grandma was young, she came over and lived in Austria for a short time. I grew up hearing stories of her adventures in Salzburg and learning German. When she would tell us good night, she would always say “Träum Süß” and before Sunday dinner, when I would say bon appétit, she would respond with Guten Appetit. Well, you can imagine how excited she was when I married a German and moved to Vienna. And after all those years of hearing her stories, I am starting to understand why she loves this country so much.
My family was here for about two weeks and we started exploring and creating stories of our own. As I wrote this, we were driving from Vienna to Salzburg. Next time we will do that drive, I hope my grandma will be with us. But thank goodness for phones and pictures right?
Speaking of, we got to visit so many amazing places and eat so many delightful foods that required a ton of pictures. So prepare yourself. Two of the places we visited were Melk and Seegrotte.
Melk
I know you’re probably thinking of the YouTube video of those guys yelling different versions of the word ‘milk’ around with a name like that. It’s this tiny, picturesque town about an hour outside of Vienna. It came as a recommendation from a dear friend and it was so so worth it!
The history of the town is very interesting. Driving up, all you see is a massive abbey sitting on a hill. I mean this thing is as big as a decent sized castle. Which is what it was at first. There was a royal family that originally built their castle there and then later on, when they moved on to Vienna and other places, they left the entire castle to monks. They are still there to this day, running a school and keeping the place alive. My favorite part of the entire thing was the library. Oh my word the library!! There was every book you could ever imagine! There were ladders and oversized chairs and globes and secret doors…all of my Harry Potter dreams come true. And we only saw two of (if I am not mistaken) 16 rooms!!!! You can even check out books to read there, you know, if your rich or famous or important. I am trying to figure out how I can read them without doing any of those three things.
Seegrotte
So, this whole thing was just fascinating. In the late 1800s, a gypsum mine was opened. It later closed in 1912 after it was flooded with water in the lower chambers. In 1930, it was open to the public as a tourist attraction until World War II broke out. Then the Nazi regime used it as a labor camp to build part of a plane. All the water in the lake was pumped out during that time. After the war, all the water was pumped back in and it continued as a tourist attraction. The lake is 60 m (196.8 ft) under ground and has a surface area of 6200 sq m (66,736.25 sq ft). It is a pretty magical experience actually.
Fun fact, they filmed a few sections of Disney’s The Three Muskateers in the mine; the prison and the underwater scene with the dragon boat. Super cool, even though I haven’t seen the movie. Apparently it’s pretty good!
I highly recommend visiting both of these places if you come to Austria. Both are beautiful and compelling.
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