The Wachau, the Danube between Krems and Melk

The Danube valley, from one bank to the other

The Wachau is the stretch of the Danube valley between Melk and Krems, an hour from Vienna. For about 35 kilometres, the river flows between slopes of terraced vineyards, held up by dry-stone walls. On the north bank, the B3 runs right beside the water and through the wine villages: Dürnstein, Weißenkirchen, Spitz. On the south bank, the quieter B33 runs past apricot orchards.

Between Melk and Mautern, there is no bridge. You cross on cable ferries, pushed along by the current; the one at Spitz takes cars all year round, the one at Weißenkirchen from April to October. From late March to early November, scheduled boats also link Melk and Krems. At each end of the valley, a baroque abbey looks down on the river: Melk, yellow on its rock, and Göttweig, on its hill facing Krems.

According to tradition, Leopold’s share of the ransom paid for the walls of Vienna and the founding of Wiener Neustadt. A later legend tells how the minstrel Blondel found his king by going from castle to castle, singing.

In 1645, during the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedes took the fortress and blew up its entrance. After that it fell into ruin. A steep path climbs up from the village in about twenty minutes. From the top, you look down on the rooftops, the abbey’s blue-and-white tower and the river.

A landscape on the UNESCO list

The Wachau has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, as a cultural landscape. What is protected is not a monument, but a whole landscape. It takes in the terraces, the orchards, the villages, the abbeys and the old towns of Krems and Stein. In the 1970s, plans for a dam near Rossatz met with opposition from local people; they were dropped in 1983. Between Melk and Krems, there is still no dam on the Danube.

The valley is narrow because here the river cuts through the edge of the Bohemian Massif, an old bedrock of gneiss and granite. During the ice ages, the wind laid down loess on the slopes. It was in this loess, at Willendorf, that a workman found the Venus of Willendorf in 1908: an 11-centimetre figurine of a woman, around 29,500 years old. In the village, a monument marks the spot; the original is in Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum, where the trip ends.

What not to miss

1. 1The library at MelkAbout 100,000 volumes under a ceiling painted by Paul Troger.
2. 2The Imperial Staircase at GöttweigThe largest baroque staircase in Austria, beneath a fresco by Troger.
3. 3The ruins of AggsteinA castle 300 metres above the river, and the legend of its robber baron.
4. 4The ferry from Spitz to ArnsdorfA few minutes on the water, car and all, on a ferry pushed along by the current.
5. 5Krems and SteinA town on record since 995, and the art museums of Stein, its western district.
6. 6The Venus of WillendorfThe real figurine, at Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum.

The Wachau in pictures

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The west front of Melk Abbey, above its rock.

The Wachau’s table

The Wachau is apricot country, and its apricot has a protected designation of origin. You buy it fresh at the roadside in summer, or as jam and as a brandy, Marillenbrand. In restaurants, you eat it as Marillenknödel: a whole apricot wrapped in dough and rolled in breadcrumbs.

The vines mostly give Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, dry whites. They are graded in three categories unique to the valley: Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd, the richest. Smaragd takes its name from a green lizard that suns itself on the stone walls. At a Heuriger, the winemaker serves a cold platter with their own wine; a pine branch above the door shows that it is open.