The heat wave that is blistering Western Europe cannot quash our travel jones soooo … up and at ‘em after breakfast: we load into the trusty Skoda and skoddadle to Durnstein, notable for being a small, well preserved early medieval town inside a wall that meanders along the Danube before going uphill to a castle where Richard the Lionheart was held captive as he was returning home from the Third Crusade.

The city itself, including its abbey’s blue tower rebuilt a la Baroque in 1710, is about the size of a large postage stamp.

The Danube — 2857 kilometers long, connecting 10 countries — contains the Wachau valley — 35 kilometers long between Melk and Gottweig — and we walk back and forth along it trying to find an easier entrance to the city than one that looks narrow and steep. OK. The steep dank arched alley it is.

As we enter the alley, we see “20-C+M+B-22” chalked on the dark wood lintel of a dwelling. We have seen this inscription a few times previously, even inscribed in a wood door of the library in the abbey at Melk. But we’ve seen it most often on lintels of homes’ front doors. Research reveals it’s a century old epiphany tradition used to bless homes and all crossing the threshold. The digits represent the year the inscription was drawn; the plus signs are the cross; and the letters stand for Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar (Magi all).

The abbey is colorful and (David’s IMHO now) would seem much more captivating had we not almost daily for the past eight days, seen so much similar. But it has its moments: the bejeweled whole-body relics in the church were dressed to the nines.

Back to the Skoda and on to Krems an der Donau, which was as large as Vienna in the 12th century, was Swiss for the year 1645, and was and remains Austria’s primary producer of Marillenschnaps (apricot brandy).

We find a place to park and walk through Steiner Tor, one of the city’s old stone gates, and wander its Main Street until Cynthia finds an ice cream confection that makes her happy. We look at the outside of Krems Piarist church and snap a photo of the Dreifaltigkeitssaule (a tall column erected in gratitude for surviving plagues and wars … say it quickly three times?).

Sorry to say, that’s it for Krems. NOW, finally, we can move on to the Nigl vineyard about 40 minutes distant. Cynthia’s favorite every-day wine.

Although we are unexpected visitors, the really nice, pretty, young receptionist originally from Serbia is willing to give Bernadette, Cynthia and me six glasses of different Gruners and Riesling’s made by Nigl. Her take on living as an expat: Serbia is conservative so, no; Switzerland is not welcoming to strangers; Italy is simply too expensive and jobs are scarce; Austria is the bomb: people are friendly, whole country is clean, jobs easy to find, life is affordable.

We skodaddle back toward our house, which is actually not in Spitz but a fly speck of a modern development of very modern three-story apartments called Schwellenbach, and stop in Spitz to eat at a beer garden.

Home for lemoncello and packing and planning for tomorrow’s drive to Hallstatt, a tiny lakeside town so beloved by the Chinese that they have made a replica somewhere in China but, clearly, still have yens to see the real thing.