Melk is dominated by one thing, and you can't miss it. The Benedictine abbey stands on a rock above the Danube like a yellow-and-white ship, with twin towers and a baroque dome, and it has watched over this stretch of river for nearly a thousand years. The monks took up the site in 1089, when Leopold II of Babenberg gave the hilltop to the order, and the building you see today is the product of an eighteenth-century rebuilding in full baroque style. It is still a working monastery with a school, and the library, with its painted ceiling and thousands of old volumes, is as handsome a room as you will see in Austria. Umberto Eco gave the name to his narrator in The Name of the Rose, Adso of Melk, which tells you something about the abbey's reputation.
The town below is small, about four thousand people, with a pastel main street and a few cafés that serve decent coffee and a slice of torte. It is a good place to end a day on the Wachau road, since you can find fuel, supper and a bed without any fuss. The Danube bike path runs right past, so expect a good number of cyclists in yellow rain jackets, and treat them with the usual courtesy.
From the abbey terrace the view takes in the river, the bridge and the forested hills of the Dunkelsteinerwald. If the light is low and the Danube is still, the effect is something close to a painting. The Wachau begins just upriver, and it is hard to find a better way to finish a ride than to come in from the west with the abbey slowly growing in front of you.
The riding in the area is mellow rather than dramatic, a matter of long river bends, vineyard slopes and the occasional brief climb. Summer weekends can be busy, and the narrow lanes around the old town do not suit a big touring bike, so use the car park below the abbey. In spring and autumn you will have more room, and the mist rising off the river in the morning is something worth getting up early for.