Lower Austria: Unforgettable Autumn Experiences

Winter Festivals in Autumn Alleys

Wine is grown in the wine-growing regions of Lower Austria with the kind of love shown by the wine culture itself, which the local region lives here. For fun in the autumn, people meet along the 830-kilometer-long Wine Route and have a choice of almost 1,100 wine streets. Currently, visitors can take advantage of one of the many opportunities to celebrate wine, whether in the form of hundreds of wine festivals, presentations of young wine or gastronomic festivals with an unmistakable atmosphere.

Historic Region of Quality Wine - Wachau

Austria's most famous wine region owes its incredibly refined and elegant white wines not only to the high level of the local winemakers, but also to the ideal natural conditions. The Wachau region is known for its lush terraced vineyards, on the area of which Rieslings and Veltlin Green thrive. Fine wines come from, for example, the charming Weißenkirchen, the legendary Dürnstein or the idyllic village of Spitz an der Donau. Thanks to these picturesque places, unique nature and rich history, the whole valley has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Adventurous Wine Cellar in Retz

Twenty to thirty meters below the wine town of Retz, an exciting adventure awaits you that you should not miss. Discover Austria's largest historic wine cellar. A widely branched labyrinth of cellar systems with a total length of twenty kilometers hides many myths and legends. It is built with a denser infrastructure than the transport network above ground. During the one and a half hour tour, professionally trained guides will tell you interesting facts about the long tradition of this famous wine cellar. In addition, you can admire countless galleries, corridors and rooms, which hide many secrets.

Mirabellas and the Druid Trail

Sweet mirabelles also come with a colorful autumn. The little yellow mirabelle is a symbol of autumn for the locals in the Waldviertel region, specifically in the village of Yspertal. In addition to wine, home-made sweet specialties filled with mirabelle jam are popular, as well as various mirabelle spirits or non-traditional gin with horseradish.

From the outskirts of the village you can get a hike along the so-called Druidenweg (Druidenweg) to the mystical stones from Celtic times. The hike leads through the Ysperklamm gorge, where the river Ysper flows to a depth of almost 300 meters in the form of small and large waterfalls. Crystal clear water refreshes the air during tourism, while tourists are accompanied by various small climbing aids, such as stone steps, wooden stairs, small footbridges and secured crossings.

Danube Forests Park

One of the last large undeveloped river floodplain landscapes of Central Europe is located in the Danube Meadows National Park. The Visitor Information Center, located at Orth Castle, invites visitors to discover the fascinating world of the Danube meadows as a "gateway to the floodplain landscape". You can experience the beauty of floodplain forests as part of extensive tours accompanied by the guards of the national park, but also directly at Orth Castle.

Semmerins Railway in the Vienna Alps

In the Vienna Alps, a paradise of views, you should also visit the 20 Schilling Blick (20-shilling view) known from old Austrian banknotes. You can reach this lookout point by following in the footsteps of the Semmerin Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on the "Bahnwanderweg". The railway line, built by Carl Ritter von Ghega, connects the south of Lower Austria with Styria.

There are many tunnels and viaducts on the 41-kilometer route of the Semmerin Railway. It leads over more than 100 bridges. On the spot, you can admire the surrounding landscape from a completely new perspective with the special mirror viewing device "Viewer" for the Vienna Alps. The Vinodukt operation also provides the visitor with a new perspective. The wine shop in the old viaduct of the Semmerin Railway will surprise visitors with the best wines from Vienna to Trieste.

We hope that we have inspired you at least a little to visit Lower Austria, shrouded in the colors, scents and beauty of autumn.

GPS: 48°23'32.2"N 15°28'01.8"E (Weißenkirchen)

Source: Niederösterreich-Werbung GmbH

Photos: (c) Mara Hohla (title), (c) by pictures

Edited by: Infoglobe