Danube Valley Day Trip from Vienna

You should know there are several hundred very steep stairs down and back up from busses to and from Melk Abbey and down into the town. Very difficult for anyone with less mobility. The town has fun shops and outdoor restaurants along a downhill promenade with a long hard uphill walk back to the steep stone stairs up to the busses - hard walking. The Danube was very low in late September 2026 making the boat trip slower reducing time in Durnstein and Melk. Durnstein is also a long walk with steep inclines up and down making it difficult for anyone with impaired mobility. Durnstein Castle ruins where Richard the Lionheart was imprisioned on his way back to Britain after crusading should be discussed in more detail.

We took the Danube Valley Tour with a rather big group in a comfortable Double Decker Bus. Our guide was Erik and our driver was Talibor. Erik gave the tour in perfect English and Spanish. During the Bus ride he gave us all the information about what to expect for the day. First we went to the city of Krems, where we boarded a ship for the river cruise. Due to the low water level in the Danube they had to change the route from Krems to Duernstein. The ship was quite crowded ,but we enjoyed a relaxing 90 minutes on board. We left the boat in Dürnstein, a small historic town and had about 45 minutes to explore the place before we took the bus to the Monastery of Melk. Here we had a lunch break and then took a guided tour of this fantastic complex. The bus took us back to Vienna on a different route and Erik gave us information about the Vienna Woods and later, after reaching the City, a narrated tour of our way back to the starting point. Compliments to him. He did a great job keeping the big group together and running a tight ship keeping the tour on schedule. Definitely a great way to see the area around Vienna and the beautiful Danube Valley.

This day trip is very scenic, features iconic architecture beautiful countryside and is very relaxing. I highly recommend it.

Very well organized tour of the Wachau valley with a Danube cruise and a guided tour of Melk abbey with very professional guide.

We did this tour on the last day of our two week European tour and were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, we were disappointed, especially with the lack of communication from our tour guide. The tour started in Vienna with a bus ride to the Wachau Valley, where we stopped to get onto the river cruise portion of the day. We were the last group to board the boat and there were no outside seating left. The boat when down (up?) the Danube then turned around and doubled back to Durnstein. So almost half the cruise repeated itself. We then got off at Durnstein and were told we'd do a brief talking tour and then have about 20 minutes to explore on our own. That never happened. We walked through the town with the guide in ten minutes, ending up at the bus parking lot at the far edge of town, and then told we had ten minutes free, with half of the time spent waiting in line to use the restroom. Back to the bus to drive to Melk. Parked at the edge of the town and figured we would have some time to check it out. Nope. Had to walk up a steep hill to get the top, where we had to wait for the guide to obtain and pass out to us the tickets to the Abbey tour. The guide said we then had about an hour until the tour started. It was then about 2:00 and no one had eaten lunch yet. We could walk back down the hill to the town and try find a place to eat (with no guidance from the guide), and then walk back up the hill, all in about an hour. Which was probably not possible. Instead, our only alternative was to eat at the overpriced restaurant next to the Abbey. The Abbey tour was alright, but that's mostly because it was run by a guide from the Abbey. But note that no pictures were allowed inside the Abbey. The guide who accompanied us throughout the day was poor; she would start talking before the group could coalesce around her, and would act perturbed if anyone had any questions. Lastly, the tour turned out to be mixed English/Spanish, which meant that 50% of the guide's time was spent repeating herself in the second language.