Melk Abbey

Melk Abbey or Stift Melk is an Austrian Benedictine abbey, and one of the world's most famous monastic sites. It is located above the town of Melk on a rocky outcrop overlooking the river Danube in Lower Austria, adjoining the Wachau valley.

The abbey was founded in 1089 when Leopold II, Margrave of Austria gave one of his castles to Benedictine monks from Lambach Abbey. A school was founded in the 12th Century, and the monastic library soon became renowned for its extensive manuscript collection. The monastery was also a major site for the production of manuscripts. In the 15th Century the abbey became the centre of the Melk Reform movement which reinvigorated the monastic life of Austria and Southern Germany.

The twenty closest neighbours in the database:

Vienna (Austria) (77 km), Bratislava (Slovak Republic) (135 km), Prague (Czech Republic) (217 km), Regensburg (Germany) (254 km), Allianz Arena (275 km), Munich (Germany) (278 km), Olympic Stadium Munich (281 km), Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) (285 km), Budapest (Hungary) (289 km), Innsbruck (Austria) (313 km), Kaltenberg (Germany) (319 km), Ettal Abbey (324 km), Augsburg (Germany) (330 km), Landsberg (Germany) (332 km), Bayreuth (Germany) (334 km), Dresden (Germany) (334 km), Linderhof Palace (334 km), Zugspitze (337 km), Nuremberg (Germany) (339 km), Bamberg (Germany) (373 km)

Take a birds-eye view of the current location:

Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Bing Maps, Yahoo!Maps