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Danube in Austria, Danube Austria, Danube Day in Austria, The Danube in Austria
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THE VALLEY OF DANUBE-AUSTRIA
The people of the Wachau, along the rich, fertile valley of the Danube in Austria are both gourmets and gourmands. They like the best when it comes to food and wine, and lots of it. But, naturally, for they live along the most scenic stretch of Europe’5 second largest river with a 2,000-year legacy of wine growing.
Not surprisingly, the region has spawned some of the finest gourmet restaurants in Austria, with a constellation of chefs who rustle up imaginative and inventive cuisine, we were told. And this, in a setting that explodes with fragrance and color.
On a recent tour of the region, we found that stops at local inns yielded hearty regional repasts. And one can small stay at small beautiful bed and breakfast places where guests are cossetted with old-fashioned service and the farm’s produce lands up on the dining table! What’s more, one’s meal comes accompanied with local wine, exuberant with fruity flavor.
Just 84 km by the Westautobahn from Vienna, the historic stretch between Krems and Melk is not only a bucolic getaway in Vienna’s backyard, it is dotted with gothic and renaissance castles and fortresses as forbidding as bouncers at a night club. There are as well baroque abbeys, like the 900-year old Melk Abbey and Gottweig Abbey perched’ in splendid and spiritual isolation on a hill.
The region is best discovered languidly by boat, car, on foot, by bike or on a narrow-gauge railway, picnic hamper in hand. For this is where the Danube valley is at its most picturesque—by turns charming and smiling with vineyards, apricot orchards and rustic villages and then suddenly forbidding with spooky, crumbling castles and ornate abbeys on rocky cliffs, wreathed in mist.
The atmosphere is heavy with myth for legend has it that the crusaders passed through here on their way to the Holy Land. As we drove to historical Krems and Stein, our first stops, across an earthy landscape of terraced vineyards, it was evident that a tradition of hard work and generosity is deeply rooted in the soil. Krems, at the heart of the region’s wine industry, is a small, handsome, pleasantly insular city that not only dotes on its past but knows and revels in its history.
It resembles a ceramic trinket, with houses clustered around its seventeenth century church. Its back streets unfold like a country lane in a dream and housewives lean out of gothic, renaissance and baroque houses that stand in tree-shaded, vest-pocket sized squares. So hushed is the town that we heard two mildly strained voices work through a domestic dispute! Apart from the lovely seventeenth century church, the elegant ornate facades of the Untere Landstrasse and the fine renaissance Rathaus (town hall) are worth a look-see.
Trees and ancient stone walls leaned together like old neighbors and flower filled the air with their sweet perfume. Local country inns and cafes had moved their tables out of storage, after a cold winter, onto the sidewalks. The Danube became wide and muscular here; its surface flexing with eddies and currents. Later in the year, boats would crisscross its length, with passengers on deck leaning back to catch the fresh breeze, rocked gently by the all-encompassing river. In April, the fruit trees were in glorious bloom.
South of Krems, high up on a hill, Gottweig monastery beckoned; standing stiffly, 449 in above sea level, like a proud old general at attention. Stern yet flamboyant, the abbey houses Benedictine monks whose sole goal is the glorification of god in prayer and work. Today, 65 monks belong to the monastery and more than 30 of them work as priests in parish and pilgrimage churches in Vienna and St Polten, a guide told us. Few places are as distant from time as this lonely abbey and one can stay there for a holiday with a difference. Those looking for a cloister for body and soul can experience the monastic lifestyle on a bed and breakfast basis or on half board or full board basis.
How and Where
The Wachau, one of the most scenic stretches of the Danube, is a holiday area par excellence.
The nearest airport is Vienna (Austrian Airlines now flies from Delhi to Vienna).
If you are arriving by train, there are stops at Amstetten, Vienna, St Polten, St Valentin, Wiener Neustadt, Bruck and Hohenau. If traveling by car, take the Al, A2 or A3.
The area is diverse one can take in historical sites, discover the joys and secrets of good wine; take challenging hikes through mountains and valleys or bicycle slow and easy through gentle scenic landscapes. In fact, the Wachau reportedly hasmore gourmet restaurants than anywhere else in Austria. And there are countless fine local inns where one can enjoy genuine regional cuisines.
An indispensable travel companion is the Welcome Ticket brochure. Under this scheme for flexible travel in Lower Austria (which includes the Wachau), visitors can stay at over 240 Welcome Ticket establishments from traditional farmsteads to venerable old wine estates to rooms in private homes, pensions and hotels. With Welcome Tickets in hand, you can book available rooms easily and without fuss at any of the host establishments listed in the Welcome Ticket guide with a picture and a description. There are tips on recreation, excursions, suggested routes and a road map.
Purchase as many tickets as you need for your stay in Lower Austria. On your return, you will receive a full refund on any unused tickets. One Welcome Ticket per person (about US 20 or Rs 840) entitles the holder to one overnight stay with shower/WC plus breakfast. Two tickets per person are required forone overnight stay in a double room at some 30 inns, evening meal included and two per person are required for one overnight stay in a double room with breakfast at 40 upper category hotels. (These are an ideal base to explore Vienna.)
All you need to do is book your first overnight accommodation in advance, especially during the peak season. You can book all subsequent accommodation either on a day to day basis (your hosts will be happy to book your next day’s hotel) or in advance. There are idyllic river cruises-short ones, longer sojourns and Kombi tickets that combine rail travel and a river cruise.
The people of the Wachau, along the rich, fertile valley of the Danube in Austria are both gourmets and gourmands. They like the best when it comes to food and wine, and lots of it. But, naturally, for they live along the most scenic stretch of Europe’5 second largest river with a 2,000-year legacy of wine growing.
Not surprisingly, the region has spawned some of the finest gourmet restaurants in Austria, with a constellation of chefs who rustle up imaginative and inventive cuisine, we were told. And this, in a setting that explodes with fragrance and color.
On a recent tour of the region, we found that stops at local inns yielded hearty regional repasts. And one can small stay at small beautiful bed and breakfast places where guests are cossetted with old-fashioned service and the farm’s produce lands up on the dining table! What’s more, one’s meal comes accompanied with local wine, exuberant with fruity flavor.
Just 84 km by the Westautobahn from Vienna, the historic stretch between Krems and Melk is not only a bucolic getaway in Vienna’s backyard, it is dotted with gothic and renaissance castles and fortresses as forbidding as bouncers at a night club. There are as well baroque abbeys, like the 900-year old Melk Abbey and Gottweig Abbey perched’ in splendid and spiritual isolation on a hill.
The region is best discovered languidly by boat, car, on foot, by bike or on a narrow-gauge railway, picnic hamper in hand. For this is where the Danube valley is at its most picturesque—by turns charming and smiling with vineyards, apricot orchards and rustic villages and then suddenly forbidding with spooky, crumbling castles and ornate abbeys on rocky cliffs, wreathed in mist.
The atmosphere is heavy with myth for legend has it that the crusaders passed through here on their way to the Holy Land. As we drove to historical Krems and Stein, our first stops, across an earthy landscape of terraced vineyards, it was evident that a tradition of hard work and generosity is deeply rooted in the soil. Krems, at the heart of the region’s wine industry, is a small, handsome, pleasantly insular city that not only dotes on its past but knows and revels in its history.
It resembles a ceramic trinket, with houses clustered around its seventeenth century church. Its back streets unfold like a country lane in a dream and housewives lean out of gothic, renaissance and baroque houses that stand in tree-shaded, vest-pocket sized squares. So hushed is the town that we heard two mildly strained voices work through a domestic dispute! Apart from the lovely seventeenth century church, the elegant ornate facades of the Untere Landstrasse and the fine renaissance Rathaus (town hall) are worth a look-see.
Trees and ancient stone walls leaned together like old neighbors and flower filled the air with their sweet perfume. Local country inns and cafes had moved their tables out of storage, after a cold winter, onto the sidewalks. The Danube became wide and muscular here; its surface flexing with eddies and currents. Later in the year, boats would crisscross its length, with passengers on deck leaning back to catch the fresh breeze, rocked gently by the all-encompassing river. In April, the fruit trees were in glorious bloom.
South of Krems, high up on a hill, Gottweig monastery beckoned; standing stiffly, 449 in above sea level, like a proud old general at attention. Stern yet flamboyant, the abbey houses Benedictine monks whose sole goal is the glorification of god in prayer and work. Today, 65 monks belong to the monastery and more than 30 of them work as priests in parish and pilgrimage churches in Vienna and St Polten, a guide told us. Few places are as distant from time as this lonely abbey and one can stay there for a holiday with a difference. Those looking for a cloister for body and soul can experience the monastic lifestyle on a bed and breakfast basis or on half board or full board basis.
How and Where
The Wachau, one of the most scenic stretches of the Danube, is a holiday area par excellence.
The nearest airport is Vienna (Austrian Airlines now flies from Delhi to Vienna).
If you are arriving by train, there are stops at Amstetten, Vienna, St Polten, St Valentin, Wiener Neustadt, Bruck and Hohenau. If traveling by car, take the Al, A2 or A3.
The area is diverse one can take in historical sites, discover the joys and secrets of good wine; take challenging hikes through mountains and valleys or bicycle slow and easy through gentle scenic landscapes. In fact, the Wachau reportedly hasmore gourmet restaurants than anywhere else in Austria. And there are countless fine local inns where one can enjoy genuine regional cuisines.
An indispensable travel companion is the Welcome Ticket brochure. Under this scheme for flexible travel in Lower Austria (which includes the Wachau), visitors can stay at over 240 Welcome Ticket establishments from traditional farmsteads to venerable old wine estates to rooms in private homes, pensions and hotels. With Welcome Tickets in hand, you can book available rooms easily and without fuss at any of the host establishments listed in the Welcome Ticket guide with a picture and a description. There are tips on recreation, excursions, suggested routes and a road map.
Purchase as many tickets as you need for your stay in Lower Austria. On your return, you will receive a full refund on any unused tickets. One Welcome Ticket per person (about US 20 or Rs 840) entitles the holder to one overnight stay with shower/WC plus breakfast. Two tickets per person are required forone overnight stay in a double room at some 30 inns, evening meal included and two per person are required for one overnight stay in a double room with breakfast at 40 upper category hotels. (These are an ideal base to explore Vienna.)
All you need to do is book your first overnight accommodation in advance, especially during the peak season. You can book all subsequent accommodation either on a day to day basis (your hosts will be happy to book your next day’s hotel) or in advance. There are idyllic river cruises-short ones, longer sojourns and Kombi tickets that combine rail travel and a river cruise.
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