I finally found the time to post our experience in Austria. Here goes…
My wife, 7-month old son, and I traveled to Austria and Bavaria during the last week of November. We went hoping to fit in some wine tasting along the way. Obviously, adjustments had to be made traveling with an infant, but he’s actually able to hang just about anywhere that isn’t “romantic candlelit dinner” ambiance. Alas, we ran into other problems on the wine front, although our trip was still wonderful. Here’s our report:
a few things we did not adequately take into account before arriving. First, because most of Europe is actually quite north in terms of latitude, it gets dark early in the late fall and winter, especially when you are in the eastern part of Western Europe. It was pretty dark by 4 pm. This ended up dramatically changing our ordinary calculus of time spent in big cities versus villages and the countryside. Second, car seats are designed differently in Europe, and many car seats made in America do not work in European cars. Hopefully any of you traveling with children in the future can learn from the minor fiasco we experienced, costing us most of a day and a few hundred dollars. Moving on…
Vienna. We arrived on a Saturday morning and dropped our bags off at the Hotel Rathaus --Wein & Design. Highly recommended even for non-wine lovers. We got a great room on the fourth floor, although the theme of our room (each room is dedicated to a different winery) was actually for a Schnapps specialist, which isn’t our thing. The hotel is in a nice location; on a side street, very quiet, but walkable to just about anywhere inside the ring. The first day we spend a chunk of time at the Nachstmarkt, which we highly recommend, especially if you are any kind of foodie. Even in winter, it was bustling and great selection of produce and food stuffs from all over the world. Great people watching too, and while I’m sure lots of tourists visit, it’s clearly filled with Viennese. In the afternoon, we went to the nearest location of Wein & Co., a very nice local chain of wine bars, also recommended. Afterwards, we went to a cafe and got warm drinks and pastries.
We quickly settled into a routine of leisurely sightseeing, mixing in a wine bar here and there, going to cafes, and just enjoying the city. We loved Vienna. We went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which was better than expected, and we checked out the Treasury and Chapel (to hear the Vienna Boys Choir) at Hofburg Palace, but we otherwise stuck mostly to walking around outside. We could have spent a week doing just that, easily. In order of preference, we enjoyed the following cafes: Cafe Landtmann (great hot chocolate, just the right atmosphere), Cafe Sperl, Demel (definitely touristy but our favorite pastries overall), Cafe Central, and Cafe Diglas (a bit overshadowed by the others). For food, we kept it low-key but loved Figlmuller for schnitzel and Hueriger Weininger (a 30 minute trip on the tram, but definitely worth it). Weininger had very nice wines as well. We tried a few other wine bars, but frankly thought that Wein & Co. did a great job.
One nice thing about being in Vienna in late November is that the Christmas Markets (Christkindlmarkts) are in full swing, but they seemed like they were probably less crazy than in December, once Advent has started. My wife loves the holiday season, and we were getting some flurries, so it was quite festive.
Overall, our short time in Vienna was a highlight of the trip. Would definitely go back.
Wachau Here’s where things took a left turn. The Wachau Valley is very beautiful, even in winter. However, it completely shuts down outside of Krems and Melk. Calling ahead 2 days earlier, we had already discovered that most of the wineries were pretty shut down with proprietors traveling or otherwise occupied. We thought we would just go and enjoy the towns and visiting wine bars and restaurants, but thought better of it when we arrived. I would estimate that 8 out of 10 hotels and inns close for the winter. Same with restaurants/gasthauses. Krems is ok but not really what you are looking for in terms of enjoying wine country. Once you get past Krems, the villages felt like ghost towns. None of the inns in Durnstein were open. We found an inn in Weisskirchen in the late afternoon, but we were the only guests checked in. All eating establishments in the village save one were already closed. We were able to do one wine tasting at Jamek (good, but we enjoy other producers more), but after walking out, we made the decision to cancel our room at the inn and drive straight to Salzburg.
Salzburg Highlight of the trip. It snowed about six inches the evening we arrived. Salzburg covered in snow is absolutely beautiful. After calling around about an hour before we arrived in town, we splurged and stayed at the Hotel Sacher, which gave us a pretty good last minute discount. We walked through the falling snow to get dinner at Die Weisse, which was fantastic. Great beer, great food, great vibe (local fun, not touristy). When we got back to the hotel, we ordered Sacher torts, cocktails, and hot chocolate as room service and felt like royalty. The next day, we did the Salzburg walking tour in Rick Steves’ guide, checked out the Christkindlmarket, drank some mulled wine, got lunch and Stiegls at Zum Wilden Mann (touristy but also great), went to a cafe for hot chocolate, and had a really inexpensive dinner with beers at Augustinerbrau Mulln, maybe my favorite beer hall in Germany or Austria. We were sad to leave the next morning, but grabbed some apfelstrudl to go.
Bavaria/Munich Our time in Germany mostly revolved around relatives, so we didn’t do all of the things we wanted to do. However, we did fit in a few things. The morning we left Salzburg, we drove straight to Neuschwanstein Castle. Touristy, but we thought it was definitely worth it, especially with almost a foot of freshly-fallen snow on the ground on a beautiful, crystal clear day. After linking up with relatives living in the suburbs, the next day, we saw some of the sights in downtown Munich. We hit up several beer halls (Der Pschorr and Augustiner were probably our favorite, with Hofbrauhaus worth it but a madhouse), climbed to the top of city hall, and ate lots of wursts and pretzels. We also hit up one wine bar that I can’t remember the name of and enjoyed some glasses of Selbach-Oster spatlese. Munich is nice, but we didn’t find it nearly as interesting as Vienna or as beautiful as Salzburg. Then, on the day after Thanksgiving, we visited Dachau. We were not very familiar with its unique history. We found the visit very meaningful and wished we had more time to spend there.
Conclusions We had a wonderful time. Contrary to all the guidebooks, Vienna and Salzburg are great places to visit in the late November if you don’t mind some drizzle (or enjoy warming up in cafes with pastries and hot chocolate and/or mulled wine). The Christmas Markets are in full swing, but it feels mostly like locals, and the regular attractions are pretty calm. As far as wine goes, if you stick to the cities, Austria is great for wine bars, and you can find just about any Austrian wine served by the glass if you look around a bit. However, do not plan to do a lot of wine tasting in Austrian wine country in the winter. The days are short, many of the wineries are not accepting visitors, and its difficult to find either lodging or food. When we were on our flight back to the USA, we promised ourselves that we would return to Austrian wine country in the summer to see it at its best.
