Wachau Valley

The Wachau is a wine valley, not a mountain region, and it earns its place here on that basis rather than any pretence otherwise. It is a 36-kilometre stretch of the Danube between Melk and Krems an der Donau in Lower Austria, where the river cuts through a band of hard gneiss and granite, terraced on both banks for vineyards since at least the Middle Ages. UNESCO listed it as a Cultural Landscape in 2000, for the intact combination of the terraces themselves, the historic riverside towns, and the monasteries and castle ruins built above them.

What there actually is to see

Melk Abbey, a working Benedictine monastery since 1089 and rebuilt in its current Baroque form by the architect Jakob Prandtauer between 1702 and 1736, sits on a rock above the valley’s western end. Dürnstein, roughly in the middle, is built around the ruin of the castle where Duke Leopold V held Richard the Lionheart prisoner in 1192 and 1193, after a dispute with Richard during the Third Crusade. The terraces themselves grow mostly Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, the region’s two signature grape varieties, on steep, dry-stone-walled slopes still largely worked by hand.

The genuine walking interest

The Welterbesteig Wachau (Wachau World Heritage Trail) is a long-distance trail, 180 kilometres in 14 stages across both banks of the river, with three seasonal ferries so you can switch sides without backtracking. It runs through vineyards, forest and the historic towns rather than open mountain country, but it is a proper multi-day waymarked trail, not a marketing label attached to a stroll. The flatter, easier Donauradweg cycle path covers the same length of valley for anyone who wants the scenery without the climbing.

The nearest real mountains

South of the valley, the Alps proper start in the limestone hills of the Mostviertel, where the Ötscher reaches 1,893 metres, well within a day’s reach by car. The Wachau’s own high points are vineyard ridges a few hundred metres up at most. Spring and autumn are the best times to visit: summer on the valley floor gets hot, tempered only a little by the river, and the vine harvest in September and October is one of the better reasons to time a visit around.