Bike & Hike the Wachau Valley
On this private Wachau bike & hike tour, you cycle along the Danube cycle path from Spitz on the Danube to Dürnstein, where you hike along the Vogelbergsteig to the Schloßberg, where you stop off at the Fessl Hut before hiking back via the Dürnstein castle ruins. From Dürnstein you then take the ferry to the south bank of the Danube and cycle back through the Wachau Valley to Spitz via the Arnsdörfer.
The private Wachau Valley Hiking Tour for 2 travelers is € 1.350,00, for 4 travelers € 1.650,00 and for 6 travelers € 1.965,00.
Hotel pick up and drop-off (locations in the Wachau Valley)
Transportation by car to Spitz on the Danube and from Spitz on the Danube
E-bike rental
Guided cycle on the Danube Cycle Path from Spitz on the Danube to Dürnstein and from Dürnstein on the south bank of the Danube back to Spitz on the Danube
Ferry crossing of the Danube from Dürnstein to Rossatzbach and from Oberarnsdorf to Spitz on the Danube
Guided hike from Dürnstein on the Vogelberg trail up to the top of the Schloßberg and down again to Dürnstein
A 2 course meal with Wiener Schnitzel and Apfelstrudel for dessert with a glas of Wachau wine in the forest hut on top of the Schloßberg
Wine tasting at Domain Wachau in Dürnstein
Stop at a typical wine tavern with a winemaker’s snack and Wachau wine on the south side of the Wachau valley
- Booking is done by phone +43 680 301 7720, whatsapp or email office@radler-rast.com.
- Bookings are confirmed after a 200 € deposit has been transferred to our PayPal business account using the link PayPal.Me/radlerrast.
The balance is due at the end of the tour and can be paid in cash or by card. - This tour is a private tour for 2, 4 or travelers.
- 2 people per booking is required.
- Minimum age is 16 years.
- Exact pick up times will be agreed when booking.
- Most travelers can participate.
- Duration 8 hours approx. The exact duration may vary including pick up and drop off.
- Hiking the Vogelbergsteig requires good weather. If it’s canceled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date.
Booking request
Description of the Bike Part of the Tour
On this private Wachau bike & hike tour we start by cycling from Spitz on the Danube to Weißenkirchen in the Wachau valley. In former times, the Wachau stretched from Spitz to Weißenkirchen and the valley floor from St. Michael to Weißenkirchen was called Thal Wachau. In St. Michael we get off the bike for the first time to visit the church of St. Michael.
St. Michael is located in the area that Charlemagne, King of the Frankish Empire, donated to Passau Abbey after 800. The Hochstift Passau was the secular domain of the prince-bishops of Passau. Charlemagne had a shrine to St. Michael built on the present-day site of St. Michael’s Church instead of a Celtic sacrificial site. In Christianity, St. Michael is regarded as the conqueror of the devil and the supreme commander of the Lord’s army.
From St. Michael’s we continue through the Kirchweg vineyard. The name of the Kirchweg vineyard goes back to the fact that for a long time the path through this vineyard was the closest route to St. Michael’s. St. Michael’s became the mother parish of the Wachau after Charlemagne, King of the Frankish Empire, donated after 800 the area to the High Diocese of Passau.
The Kirchweg vineyards are characterised by loess and are mainly planted with Green Veltliner. In the Wachau Valley, mainly white wine is grown. Green Veltliner is the main grape variety which is an autochthonous Austrian grape variety that produces a fresh-tasting, fruity wine.
Grüner Veltliner is a natural cross between Traminer and an unknown grape variety called St. Georgen. Grüner Veltliner prefers warm climates and produces the best results on the barren primary rock terraces of the Wachau Valley or in the loess-influenced vineyards on the valley floor of the Wachau Valley, which used to be beet fields before they were converted into vineyards.
The Danube cycle path leads partly along the old Wachau road through small picturesque medieval villages, such as Wösendorf, where along the main road running from the church square down to the Danube you will find stately two-storey eaves-mounted vintner houses, some with projecting upper storeys on brackets.
On the Danube cycle path through the valley of the Wachau from Wösendorf further in the direction of Weißenkirchen, we pass the Prandtauer Hof in Joching, a baroque, two-storey, four-winged complex built in 1696 by Jakob Prandtauer with a three-part portal with a round-arched gate in the middle. The building was originally erected in 1308 as the reading room of the Augustinian canons’ monastery of St. Pölten. The chapel on the upper floor of the north wing dates from 1444 and is characterised by a ridge turret on the outside.
After the Prandtauerhof, the country road is leading into Weißenkirchen, where there is a Gothic fortified tower from the 15th century, which is a former fortification tower of the Kuenringer feudal court. It is a massive, 3-storey tower with some partially bricked-up windows and beam holes on the 2nd floor.
From Weißenkirchen we continue cycling towards Dürnstein on the foot of the Buschenberg and Kaiserberg vineyards through the aluvial plain of the Frauenweingärten. The name Frauengärten refers to the fact that nuns from the women’s monastery in Dürnstein are said to have cultivated these vineyards.
The Hike
The hike part of the private Wachau bike & hike tour starts in the western outkirts of Dürnstein at the entrance of the Talgraben. From there you climb on the backside of the Biratalwand up to the nose on the so called Vogelbergsteig before you continue towards the top of the Vogelberg first northeast and then northwest on the ridge formed by the western wall of the Talgraben and the eastern wall of the Kummerstal.
The Vogelbergsteig is at it’s beginning a narrow path through the moist woods that goes up in serpentines on the backside of the west facing Biratalwand that rises steeply from the Danube. The moisture that comes from the stream that flows down through the valley ditch gives rise to an abundant vegetation along this stretch of the Vogelbergsteig while higher up, plants that thrive on dry soil such es sessile oak and black pine predominate.
The Vogelbergsteig higher up runs on the rock of the ridge, which is formed by the elevation between Talgraben and Kummerstal and which leads to the summit of the Vogelberg. The rock consists of Gföhler Gneis that was formed about 490 million years before. Gföhler gneiss is a migmatitic granite gneiss. Migmatite is a partially melted, coarsely mixed rock and granite gneiss is granite that is metamorphosed by intense heat and pressure into a banded rock.
Oaks like mineral-rich soils and are extremely frugal in terms of their location. Their roots reach deep into the ground and can thus survive drought. Sessile oaks, Quercus petraea, are solitary because they need a lot of light.
The sessile oak prefers hilly and low mountainous areas on dry, deep, stony soils. The scientific species name Quercus ( oaks ) petraea ( rocks ), rock oak, refers to the occurrence on stony soils.
Beside oaks pine trees grow in the rocky environment that is found on the way up the Vogelberg. The Austrian, or black, pine (P. nigra) derives its name from the sombre aspect of its dark green, sharp, rigid, rather long leaves. The tree displays a deeply fissured bark and light brown branches. Pinus nigra is a light-demanding species, intolerant of shade but resistant to wind and drought.
The Vogelberg, birds mountain, in Dürnstein in the Wachau Valley refers to it’s steep slopes interspersed with scrub and dry forest, which have always been used as nesting sites by birds.
From the Vogelberg we hike in a curve to the east to a hut in the forest which was built by the Fessl family about a hundred years ago to serve hikers to the nearby Starhembergwarte. We take a brake in the Fessl hut to have some local food with a glas of Wachau wine.
After the stop in the Fessl hut we start our descent to Dürnstein on the eastern wall of the Talgraben. On a rock 150 m above the old town of Dürnstein we come by Dürnstein castle which was built in the 12th century by the Kuenringers, an Austrian ministerial family of the Babenbergs, who held the bailiwick of Dürnstein at that time. The deputies appointed by the sovereigns from the 13th century onwards to take care of the administrative business on site were known as bailiff. The bailif was responsible for the judiciary, the administration, the preparation of the military draft and financial matters.
The English king, Richard the 1st, on his way back from the 3rd Crusade, was captured as a hostage in Vienna Erdberg on 22 December 1192 and taken to the castle of Dürnstein until he was handed over to Henry VI, who held him prisoner at Trifels Castle in the Palatinate until the ransom was brought by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to the Court Day in Mainz on 2 February 1194. Part of the ransom was used to build Dürnstein.
From Dürnstein castle we take the donkey path down to the old town of Dürnstein. A donkey path is a path in the vicinity of hilltop castles that usually led hidden to side entrances of the castle. Donkey paths were often characterised by a very narrow, steep route to make it difficult for armoured enemies to use them and, as long as the castle did not yet have a reliable well, they were mainly used to supply water, which was transported on donkeys in barrels.
Dürnstein is located on a rock above the banks of the Danube in the Wachau Valley of Lower Austria. The baroque blue white bell tower of the Dürnstein Abbey church is a landmark. In 1372, a chapel was built in Dürnstein and in 1410 a monastery was founded around the chapel and Augustinian Canons were brought from Bohemia.
The canons of Dürnstein built the church, priory and cloister. In the seventeenth century the Abbey complex was renovated in the baroque style while retaining the gothic structure by Joseph Munggenast, a nephew of Jakob Prandtauer, an Austrian Baroque architect who also built Melk Abbey.
The Hiking Route
The map below shows the hiking route. As can be seen from Dürnstein we head north to the nose and from there the Vogelberg upwards. On the way back down we come passed the Fesslhütte and Dürnstein castle.
Details of the hiking part of the tour
Hiking distance: 4,8 km
Ascent: 338 m
Descent: 338 m
Highest point: 548 m
Lowest point: 204 m
Wine Tasting at Domain Wachau in Dürnstein
Following the hike we go for some wine tasting to the Domain Wachau in the east of Dürnstein. Domain Wachau is a cooperative of Wachau winegrowers that presses its members’ grapes centrally in Dürnstein and has been marketing them under the name Domain Wachau since 2008. The Starhembergs bought the vineyards from the estate of the Dürnstein canon monastery, which was secularized in 1788, around 1790. Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg sold the domain to the vineyard tenants in 1938, who subsequently founded the Wachau winegrowers’ cooperative.
The continuation of the bike part of the tour
On a bike ferry we cross the Danube from Dürnstein to the southbank. From there you have a beautiful view of Dürnstein with its blue church tower, a landmark of the Wachau.
Rührsdorf
As we cycle along the Danube cycle path on the south bank, we pass through Rührsdorf. Rührsdorf is a riverside and street village parallel to the Danube with a narrow, multi-angled thoroughfare, which was located directly on the Danube before the Danube was regulated in 1862-69. The village is scattered with single-family vineyard houses with varying ridge and eaves heights.
Weißenkirchen in the Wachau
Opposite Rührsdorf on the north bank of the Danube lies Weißenkirchen with its elevated parish church. As early as the beginning of the 9th century, there were possessions of the Freising monastery in Weißenkirchen and around 830 a donation to the Bavarian monastery of Niederaltaich. Around 1150, the villages of St. Michael, Joching and Wösendorf were merged to form the large municipality of Wachau, also known as Thal Wachau, with Weißenkirchen as the main town.
St. Lorenz
The small church of St. Lorenz opposite Weißenkirchen in the Wachau, situated on the rocks of the Dunkelsteinerwald forest and the Danube, is one of the oldest places of worship in the Wachau. It was built on the south side of a Roman fortress from the 4th century AD as a place of worship for boatmen, the north wall of which was incorporated into the church.
Wachau nose
The Wachau Nose looks as if a giant has been buried lying down and only its nose is sticking out of the ground, with nostrils large enough to enter. When the Danube rises and flows through the nose, the nostrils then fill up with Letten, a gray deposit from the Danube that smells of fish. The Wachau Nose is a project by the artists of Gelitin, which was supported by Kunst im öffentlichen Raum NÖ.
Parish church of Weißenkirchen in the Wachau
As you continue along the Danube cycle path on the south bank of the Wachau upstream between St. Lorenz and Unterkienstock, a beautiful view opens up on the opposite side. Here you can see the parish church of Weißenkirchen from the 13th century dominating the village with its monumental, square north-west tower from 1502 and the vineyard terraces of the Weitenberg in the background.
The Danube at Bacharnsdorf
Bacharnsdorf is the first of the Arnsdörfer villages when approaching from Mautern. The Arnsdörfer developed over the course of time from an estate that Ludwig II, the German, gave to the Salzburg church in 860. Over the course of time, the villages of Oberarnsdorf, Hofarnsdorf, Mitterarnsdorf and Bacharnsdorf developed from the richly endowed estate in the Wachau. The Arnsdörfer were named after the first archbishop of the archdiocese of Salzburg, named Arn, who reigned around 800. The importance of the Arnsdörfer for the archdiocese of Salzburg lay in wine production.
St. Michael
From the Danube cycle path in Bacharnsdorf, you have a beautiful view of St. Michael. The late Gothic fortified church of St. Michael, the mother church of the Wachau, lies at the foot of the Michaelerberg, which drops steeply into the Danube over 300 meters above sea level. It is surrounded by a cemetery and a well-preserved 15th century fortification with a massive, three-storey round tower in the south-east corner. St. Michael’s goes back to a shrine to St. Michael, which Charlemagne had built around 800 on the site of a Celtic sacrificial site.
Parish church of St. Rupert in Hofarnsdorf
The parish church of St. Ruprecht in Hofarnsdorf was possibly originally the site of a Roman fortification tower. It was founded by the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg and was originally the chapel of the Salzburg Meierhof. The church is named after Rupert, the first abbot-bishop of Salzburg. The present church dates back to the 15th century. It has a Romanesque west tower and a Baroque choir. There are two side altars with altarpieces by the Krems Baroque painter Martin Johann Schmidt from 1773.
Spitz on the Danube
Spitz on the Danube is a market town on the left bank of the Danube that wraps around the Tausendeimerberg. As a gift from Charlemagne, Spitz belonged for a long time to the Bavarian monastery of Niederaltaich, which is located in the diocese of Passau between Passau and Deggendorf on the Danube. This is why the parish church of Spitz, which was incorporated into the Niederaltaich monastery, is dedicated to St. Mauritius.
Details of the biking part of the tour
Biking distance: 22 km
Ascent: 36 m
Descent: 47 m
- Ascent to the Schloßberg on an alpine path. Stop at a hut for hikers. Enjoy Wiener Schnitzel, apple strudel and Wachau wine there.
- The castle ruins of Dürnstein. Spectacular views of Dürnstein and the Wachau valley.
- A guide who lives in the Wachau.
- Visit of a typical local wine tavern.
- Cycling thruogh historic Wachau villages on the Danube cycle path.
- Crossing the Danube on a bike ferry
The private Wachau Valley Hiking Tour for 2 travelers is € 1.350,00, for 4 travelers € 1.650,00 and for 6 travelers € 1.965,00.
Hotel pick up and drop-off (locations in the Wachau Valley)
Transportation by car to Spitz on the Danube and from Spitz on the Danube
E-bike rental
Guided cycle on the Danube Cycle Path from Spitz on the Danube to Dürnstein and from Dürnstein on the south bank of the Danube back to Spitz on the Danube
Ferry crossing of the Danube from Dürnstein to Rossatzbach and from Oberarnsdorf to Spitz on the Danube
Guided hike from Dürnstein on the Vogelberg trail up to the top of the Schloßberg and down again to Dürnstein
A 2 course meal with Wiener Schnitzel and Apfelstrudel for dessert with a glas of Wachau wine in the forest hut on top of the Schloßberg
Wine tasting at Domain Wachau in Dürnstein
Stop at a wine tavern with a snack and Wachau wine
- Booking is done by phone +43 680 301 7720, whatsapp or email office@radler-rast.com.
- Bookings are confirmed after a 200 € deposit has been transferred to our PayPal business account using the link PayPal.Me/radlerrast.
The balance is due at the end of the tour and can be paid in cash or by card. - This tour is a private tour for 2, 4 or travelers.
- 2 people per booking is required.
- Minimum age is 16 years.
- Exact pick up times will be agreed when booking.
- Most travelers can participate.
- Duration 8 hours approx. The exact duration may vary including pick up and drop off.
- Hiking the Vogelbergsteig requires good weather. If it’s canceled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date.
Booking request
Departure details
- Traveler pick up is offered.
- We pick up guests from all Wachau valley accommodations, from train stations in Melk and Krems and from cruise ships that dock in the Wachau valley.
- If hotel or cruise pier is inaccessible by car due to restrictions, pickup will be held from a nearby location within short walking distance.
Return details
- Returns to original departure point
Not wheelchair accessible.
For this private bike & hike tour guests need footwear that allows them to walk on an alpine path.