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More Great Drives from TCC 

By Farhad Heydari

You would expect a regular, let alone frequent visitor to any city to have, at the very least, a cursory knowledge of its immediate surroundings. But in Europe, where capitals are often an intoxicating thespian tonic of visual seduction littered with cultural gems and gastronomic finds, getting to discover their haphazardly laid-out soul can take years, if not a lifetime.

And so it was that despite my repeated visits to Vienna, I was still ignorant as to what lay beyond its Gürtel - the outer of the city's two Otto Wagner-designed ring roads. And who could blame me: with blockbuster cultural attractions, wide leafy boulevards and coffeehouses like Café Landtmann, I was perfectly happy to while away the hours, newspapers in one hand and an espresso in the other having skipped through galleries at MQ and concerts at the Musikverein.

That is until just a few months ago, when I made my way to Lower Austria or Niederösterreich: the country's largest province, covering fully a quarter of land, it envelops the capital; hugs Austria's eastern-most corner; and stretches from the Czech border in the north to the Slovakian border, with that country's alluring capital, Bratislava, just a stone's throw away.

Apple and wine country

My visit, I'm ashamed to admit, wasn't fueled by curiosity. No, I was sent to the region to report and so it was that soon after arriving at Schwechat Airport, located south of the city, I jumped on the Ost Autobahn (A40/E60) for the short trip north, longingly skirting the fringes of the capital on a combination of the E59 (which crossed the Danube) before making my way northwest on the A22, the Donauufer Autobahn.

Lower Austria consists of four distinct regions; counter-clockwise they are the Waldviertel (forest region), Mostviertel (the must region, where tidy orchards at the foothills of the Alps produce superlative apple and pear musts), Industrieviertel (the industrial region to the south and west of the city, which includes the airport) and lastly, the Weinviertel or wine region, the country's largest.

I was headed to Langenlois, a picturesque baroque village 45 minutes from Vienna whose central location in the Weinviertel - just north of the Danube and south of the immaculate Naturpark Kamptal - made it an ideal point from which to explore the countryside. The tiny cobbled village, known to clued-up Europeans for years, was recently put on the architectural map by American designer Steven Holl's striking Loisium wine resort, which opened exactly a year ago.

The 82-room hotel, a stunning metallic play on light and space, is nestled amid newly planted vines and complements the Loisium Museum, an equally dramatic three-storey metallic structure containing centuries-old cellars, which together form the $24 million property. And while I was entirely happy to settle down in its year-round heated pool, its three saunas and its mint-green Aveda spa, I was also inquisitive enough about the surroundings to get on the road.

Immaculate conceptions

Austria 's winding B-roads are as immaculate and well maintained as their German brethren, despite the fact that they endure far harsher weather conditions. And while significant snowfall in these parts is uncommon, ice and rain during the winter months isn't. It is this dynamic, together with a fertile granite and gneiss soilrock, baking summer heat and an industrious group of winemakers, from which, after 2000 nascent years, a reputable, world-class wine-industry has finally emerged, much to the delight of the international wine firmament.

Most surprising, the endless vista of swaying vineyards, orchards, and sunflower farms that make up the Kamptal Valley's rolling panoramas, are interlaced with tiny service lanes - an automotive wanderers' slow-crawl dream-come-true. Well-marked, they connect parishes, provide short cuts, and generally take you off the beaten path, as I discovered when after a few turns I was suddenly face-to-face with Schloss Grafenegg, located a mere five miles from Langenlois (take the B35 and Hauptstrasse to Grafenegg and then Haitzendorf).

An eye-catching, recently renovated, mid-nineteenth century neo-Gothic castle, Grafenegg sits stately on a grass-covered moat and was designed by Leopold Errnst amidst a substantial manicured park. The outsized castle, with its gargoyles, gables, and glint features rotating exhibitions, houses a restaurant and hotel, and hosts music concerts.

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A down-home idyll

Haitzendorf is situated west of a string of villages with Wagram in their name - so entitled for the nearby Battle of Deutsch-Wagram in which Napoleon defeated the Austrians in 1809 and thus brought with it, an end to the War of the Fifth Coalition. Today a combination of the B34 and the Kremser Strasse connect these idyllic villages, all of which are speckled with downhome wineries that are renowned for their plentiful bounty of celebrated Grüner Veltliner, one of the most versatile food wines in the world.

With my palette wetted at a local Weingut and spurred on by a combination of beautiful weather, a fascination with border crossings and hours of remaining daylight, I decided to continue my spontaneous excursion and made north on the B303/E59 autobahn.  What I happened upon in the course of the next four hours as I embarked on a large loop of Upper Niederösterreich, can be best described as an improbable castle-studded landscape that has one even crossing an international border by foot.

The shading vista of sepia-tinted hillsides that frame the B303/E59 autobahn - a main north-south artery between the Czech Republic and Austria that's also know romantically as Weinviertler Straße - can lull you into driving forever. And sitting bolt-upright behind a sprightly, well-behaved Audi A3 diesel, I was entirely happy to do just that. Except, as a German rental I was unable to take it into the Czech Republic .

Citadel in stone

And so, just before the border village of Haugsdorf, not wanting to retrace my tracks, I made the last possible left in hopes of a counter-clockwise loop and began tracing the international boundary on Lindenallee, toward Retzbach, a trio of charming cobble-carpeted villages astride the crossing.

I was determined to keep the frontier on my right and just minutes after passing through Mitterretzbach, the last of the villages, as I entered a thicket of trees, there on the depressed, mossy right shoulder of the road were stunted white markers with Ö stenciled in red for Österreich on one side and CZ on the other.

This was the unguarded border. It was also the southern-most boundary of the Thayatal National Park, one of the gems of Lower Austria, so named for the river that for 25 km forms the perimeter between the two countries. You can cross it legally on a tiny footbridge in the absolutely stunning settlement of Hardegg, Austria's smallest town, which is reached by heading toward Niederfladnitz and then Merkersdorf, the former home to an ocher-coloured castle worthy of exploration.

Hardegg, which is nestled atop a 500-foot high, millennia-old gorge, is anchored by the Hardegg Burg, a massive medieval stone citadel on the highest of the rocky outcroppings. Below, a guesthouse and restaurant front a tiny waterfront border station, where passports are checked but wandering across the Thayabrücke to the Czech side of the park, where fly-fishing is de rigueur, is encouraged.

The winding road home

Having reached what I thought was the apex of my journey, both literally and metaphorically, it was time to head back south. Still, there were more surprises in store. Five-miles from Hardegg is Riegersburg, home to that town's iconic 11th-century castle, Schloss Riegersburg, whose graveled landscaping gives it the right-honorable air of regality. The Baroque, cream-coloured chateaux was restored in the early nineteenth century and features some lovely rooms and wall decorations.

The B30, now a winding ribbon through farmlands, connects Riegersburg to Geras, whose eternal pink-coloured abbey dates to 1150 and keeps watch over the diminutive town. Two lesser settlements, Goggitsch and Hötzelsdorf, round out the handful of parishes on this vast wooded plateau, where the crepuscular sky, with lashings of Lenticular clouds, seemed an arm length away.

The zigzagging blacktop down to Horn - the area's largest town with a recently-restored high street that's lined with cafés and restaurants - was a hell-for-leather beeline and just three miles south of that city and back on the B34, a final surprise awaited as the landscape went from wide and undulating to tightly-flanked - the road now tracing the railroad tracks and the Kamp River along the valley floor.

It was the tidy village of Gars am Kamp, where visitors are greeted by the floodlit sight of the medieval Schloss Rosenburg, hovering dramatically over the edge of a steep couloir above town. Beneath, tiny half-timbered houses and a handful of family-run hotels cater to travelers for whom exploring the natural vastness of nearby Naturpark Kamptal is a favorite pastime. But with Langenlois, a lap through Loisium's saunas and a glass of Veltliner awaiting my return, the park would be the one locale I would reluctantly have to skip. 

Not so, during my next visit.

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What To Drive: Audi A3

2006 Audi A3  |