The view of the Melk Abbey from the Danube is considered one of the most impressive sights in Austria.
Melk became the home of the Benedictines in 1089, but long before that this hill and cliff was a defensive location on the Danube.
The monastery at Melk burned in 1297, 1683 and again in 1735.
The current 1736 reconstruction contains some earlier elements.

The reconstruction of the abbey was for the most part complete by 1736.
Two years later a fire destroyed much of the new complex.
Abbot Berthold, already advanced in years, immediately decreed
that his life's work should be rebuilt, but he did not live to see it finally completed.

On March 21, 1089 Babenberg Margrave Leopold II of Austria (1075-1095)
made over the church and the castle on the cliff site of Melk to the
Benedictine abbot Sigibold and his monks. Ever since that day monks
have lived here in observance of the rules formulated by Saint Benedict of Nursia.
The abbey library still houses the copy of the Benedictine Rule
which the monks had brought with them from their original monastery.
Today the abbey building, whose exterior is painted entirely in yellow,
is Austria's most famous example of baroque architecture.
The abbey stands at the entrance to the Wachau,
a picturebook stretch of the Danube Valley in Lower Austria.