Dürnstein

We've discovered our favorite day-trip from Vienna: Dürnstein. We saw this town from our Danubian cruise a couple of weeks ago and knew we wanted to visit it. So on Monday, which was an Austrian holiday that Andrew had off, we took a train there.

We passed the time on the train reading stories...

...and resting.

The town was gorgeous; coblestones, narrow passages, a pretty cemetary, and apricots. We finally figured out how to do slideshows on the blog, so enjoy!

Then we hiked up to the castle that overlooks the town. Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned there in AD 1192 while travelling back to England from the Third Crusade (apparently he had offended Duke Leopold V of Austria). The hike up was wonderful.

We stopped for lunch at the base of the ruin of the castle's guard tower. Great views from the tower!

Then, the castle. Eden kept wondering where King Richard was held prisoner--then they found a barred-off room. Eden decided that was the place. The kids had the most fun playing here.

After we hiked back from the castle, we visited the church and small abbey in Durnstein. The kids were captivated by the centuries-old saints enclosed in glass. And the last few photos in the slideshow were taken by Eden and Fox; their first.

It was my favorite day yet in Austria. We took the bus to Krems where I ate at my favorite restaraunt again before taking the train home to Vienna. As you can see, Fox was exhausted after the hike and used the bus ride to recuperate. Eden took this picture too.