I finally slept well on Tuesday night - yay!
We woke up Wednesday and had breakfast, then bundled up and headed to the deck. We sailed for roughly 90 min through the Wachau Valley and George (the Program Director) provided commentary from the bridge. It. Was. Cold. The temp was probably 50*, but there was a stiff headwind that was brutal. All 8 of our group were outside at one point, but most lasted less than 10 min. Jeff was smart and we packed our rain pants and both put them on. I had on a wool sweater, down jacket, rain jacket /windbreaker, cashmere scarf, hat, and gloves. And a blanket from the deck on my lap. Brrr! We did have a clear day and were able to see a lot! At one point they served a shot of apricot schnapps to everyone to warm up.
We arrived in Krems around 11am and disembarked at 11:30 for the Goettweig Abbey. Viking apparently has exclusive rights to bring river tour groups there, though we saw other individuals visiting as well. The Abbey is known for its apricot products and wine. We got a tour of the Abbey and some time to explore on our own. They currently have 12 monks in residence , the other 30 are in the local parishes.
After exploring we tasted 3 of their wines. I bought a jar of apriocot preserves and Jeff a bottle of their apricot wine.
We had a late lunch after arriving back at the ship. I had a tasty Cuban sandwich. We had a little down time and sat up on deck and called Abby (we talked to Lauren the night before) - she wasn’t super chatty, but we heard about her and Carol’s plans for their day together. When we said goodbye she burst into tears (which made me tear up).
At 
4pm we hopped back on a bus to visit the Moerwald winery. Our tour guide was from the States but she has lived in Austria for 30 years. You could tell she was a native English speaker, though. Her name was Trinka and she was quite entertaining. She told us a lot about Erhart, the vintner, on the 20 min drive to his winery. He farms 65 acres and has another 65 that someone else manages, but delivers the grapes to him for processing. He makes all the house wine for all Viking ships in the Wachau Valley - 250k bottles per year. And his winery isn’t that big! He was absolutely delightful. During the tour he spoke in German and Trinka translated. When we got to the tasting room he spoke a bit of English. Then, as Trinka forewarned, he often ran out of English words and started speaking in German and she would translate. He talked about his wines (we tried 6), joked about what holding your wine glasses in different ways meant, and also broke out some schnapps for us. He personally rang up every purchase in the gift shop (we bought 3 bottles of wine and some “Christmas in a bottle”). Very enjoyable excursion.
We got back as they started dinner service - it was Taste of Austria night - the wait staff were dressed in red and white checked shirts and served beer at the door. They had a few kinds of sausages, sauerkraut, and mac and cheese. We turned in right after dinner - long day!
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