Wachau World Heritage Trail–explore wine country by foot

If you love wine, now is the time to plan a harvest season escape. What’s our pick? The Wachau World Heritage Trail offers wine lovers the chance to drink in this regions beauty with their mouths and eyes. What could be more romantic than strolling through picturesque, Austrian wine country on one of the trail’s 14 legs. Or, if your idea of sexy is spending a week in the splendor of the great outdoors, you can walk the entire trail through Renaissance towns and world-famous vineyards. Imagine hitting the trail at the peak of harvest season–you’ll be the first to evaluate the 2016 vintage! If you’re a Riesling lover or want to discover the joys of Gruner Veltliner–one of our favorite white wine grapes–we can’t think of a better experience. (On the Spitzer Graben leg in the western Wachau, wineries of the Marivino group offer special tastings of local wines and foods every Sunday.)

This spectacular trail overlooks the Danube and it’s possible to plan your journey to include hitching a ride on a ferry down the river if all that wine makes you feel a bit lazy. We can’t think of a better place to celebrate the harvest of 2016.

Harvest season typically runs from September through late fall. It tends to be one of the drier seasons but rainy days can get unseasonably cold and plan to cuddle up at night to ward off the evening chill. For more information on the Wachau World Heritage Trail, we recommend checking out Austria’s official travel guide, which includes just about everything you need to plan the full trip, http://www.austria.info/us/austriantime/wachau-world-heritage-trail.