THE WINE TALE

I’m not sure whether it was the guilt brought on by gilt we saw at the Benedictine Monastery but we all felt pretty guilty, and under exercised by the mere 30 kms we rode between Melk and Krems on Thursday 4 June.

It was, however, one of the most beautiful cycles through postcard-gorgeous wine country. We started in a somewhat chilly morning on the south bank and headed to Hofansdorf. We caught the ferry over to the north to another cobbled village, Spitz. We lingered over particularly good coffee in a warm “Italian” cafe. There was a party of older folk celebrating one of their birthdays at 10amish with cold beers all around.

From Spitz we headed through a sea of Wachau region vineyards and picture perfect cobbled villages including Wosendorf, Weissenkirchen and Durstein. We indulged in some tasting (and a little buying, though only what could fit in the panniers) at Domian Wachau from where we had a free voucher and which is a large, modern co-operative winery for many of the region’s wine makers. We stopped for lunch at Unterloiben where we were promised the best duck in the world and reckon we had it. It was probably just as well it was a short ride then through Stein to Krems (and the particularly quirky Park Hotel). We had great fun exploring the Krems night markets and Bas and I settled in to watch a good ‘uni’ band well after dark.