Spitz is a beautifully situated little town, with a pleasant market place dominated by a square church tower with steep wedge-shaped roof of many-coloured tiles. On the opposite side of the river is one of the Arnsdorfs--a cluster of houses about a steep-roofed church--half a dozen striking poplars and the wooded hills beyond. The Spitz castle ruins upon the bare dark rock are among the most picturesque of those we see, and represent an ancient place that belonged at one time to those great territorial magnates the bishops of Passau and at another time to some of those robber knights whose fastnesses were dotted with what must have been disquieting frequency along the course of the Danube. Beyond Spitz--about which it has opened out somewhat--the valley again contracts, and the road on the left is cut through rugged rock, which in places almost overhangs the way. Looking back we have a beautiful view of Spitz, the light green of its surrounding vineyards contrasting strikingly with the rock, the mountains and forests and the broad sweep of the green Danube, as seen under a cloudy sky with brilliant sunshine following on a heavy shower. A little beyond and we reach the small village of St. Michael with its old church, along the roof ridge of which are placed seven hares, to commemorate--so the local story runs--a time when the snowfall in the neighbourhood had been so heavy that the hares were seen playing on the church roof! The animal figures are as like deer, cows or horses as they are to hares! The open-topped square tower of this old Gothic church is notable as being quite unlike any other that we see in the neighbourhood. Another story of this district, and of only little more than a hundred years ago, seems rather an incident of the Middle Ages than of the closing years of the eighteenth century. It is said that a poor lonely old woman had got the reputation among her neighbours of being a witch and, therefore, when she was feeding her goat upon a hillside she was shot with a glass bullet; a severe thunderstorm which had arisen having been caused by her, according to the belief of her superstitious murderers. [Illustration: SPITZ VINEYARDS] The next point of special interest along this lovely bit of the river is Weissenkirchen, the villages of Wösendorf and Joching, with their orchards and vineyards, being pleasant little places without any special feature to call for a halt. Weissenkirchen, however, is a place that certainly does call for a halt owing to that which it has to show in itself and as being situated where the valley has widened somewhat at one of the most beautiful points in the Wachau.