Krems, Austria

Early wake-up again! We walked the Ringstrasse and saw many landmarks along the way: Rathaus, Votiv Church and many others. We had breakfast at Struck of pastries and lattes. The food was very tasty for a chain restaurant. At 9am we went to the Vienna Explorer office for our bike tour of the Wachau Valley. Our group had a total of 12 people and 2 guides (Jose and Karin)

We took the train to Krems and picked up the bikes. In total we biked about 15 miles. We biked along the north bank of the Danube through vineyards, stopping at various places for wine tastings. Our first stop was at Domane Wachau in Oberloiben. It was raining in the morning but slowly tapered off. From there, we biked to Durnstein for lunch at Durnsteinerhof. I got schnitzel on top of a salad and Myron got schnitzel with fries. We did some shopping and bough apricot liquor, apricot jam and some silver earrings for me. We also had time to stop at a blue church which was lovely and very peaceful.

Our second tasting was in Weissenkirchen at the Mang family vineyards, who have been making wine since the 1200's. From there, we returned to Unterloiben where we stopped at the Graf family heuriger. This was a very cozy atmosphere in an outdoor garden. Most of the wines we tried (all but one) were white wines, because this is the predominant grape type that is grown in this region. We purchased some snacks in the train station and took the train and metro back to the hotel.

Dinner was at Figlmuller for some insanely huge schnitzel with potato salad. The food was good and the restaurant was definitely like a factory! Ice-cream at Eis Greissler was a perfect way to complete the day! They have some unique flavors that were very tasty.Read more