Stage 1: Krems – Dürnstein

We arrived around 9.30 a.m. in Krems and dove straight into our first stage – after having had to walk 1,5km to the starting point at the Hoher Markt (because we never do it the easy way, of course 🤣).

Immediately the pattern of today’s tour began to emerge: up and down and up and down…

At first we started through a nice residential area of Krems and afterwards through the famous vineyards above Stein.

It wasn’t really hot but now and then the sun came out and we began to sweat. Good thing we were nearly completely alone. 😉 Great views all along the way!

Before continuing on the original trail we made a nice detour of an hour to visit a colleague from work and get jealous of his new built home in the midst of the vineyards and pure peace! 😍

Just 5 minutes behind his house there’s the Donauwarte Egelsee so we went there, too, and got a great view down on the Wachau!

Down back to get to the original trail we hiked through the Reisperbachtal and the Alois-Scholz-Naturlehrpfad which was an awesome path through the woods. And again very quiet!

After an hour we joined the original path again and began hiking through the vineyards again. With awesome views and lovely art on the way.

The direct way to Dürnstein would have been like 4km and hardly any meters up but the track wanted to show us every single vineyard in the region so we hiked up one and down again and hiked up the next and so on. You get the idea. 🤣 Actually, the path was awesome and well marked but a bit too much hiking on concrete for my liking.

Only near the end, when our destination was in sight we had a little path through the forest again. Yay! 😆

Finally we arrived in Dürnstein and after dumping our backpacks in our B&B and showering, we collected all the food we could find (don’t do shopping on an empty stomach after hiking for 5 hours!) and had lunch and dinner altogether. Pasta it was – being the only vegetarian savory dish. 😂 When the waitress took our plates after we were finished she said: “Everything was ok? The dishes are empty at least.” To be fair, we even ate the decoration in form of herbs. 🤪

Afterwards we sat at the Danube at various spots and enjoyed a beautiful evening.