Current notices:
Due to construction work on the bridge between Mautern and Stein (Mautern Bridge), there are immediate restrictions for cyclists! The cycle path currently runs on the roadway (speed limit 30 km/h). Please exercise increased caution!
Current information on traffic restrictions can also be found here.
Enjoy the landscape with baroque abbey and robber baron castle
On this section of the beautiful Danube cycle route, you cycle from Melk, the "Gate to the Wachau", along the Danube to the historic town of Mautern, which already played a major role in Roman times. On your way through the picturesque Danube valley, you will pass, among others, Schönbühel on the Danube, Aggsbach, and Rossatz-Arnsdorf.
This stage leads you along the Dunkelsteiner Forest, one of the largest contiguous forest areas in Central Europe. The advantage of the route on the south bank is the wide view – over the magnificent landscape of the Wachau World Heritage Site with its lovely, rocky forest slopes, terraced hills and vineyards as well as with the charming towns on the opposite bank. Before leaving Melk, the "Gate to the Wachau", you should definitely visit the abbey founded by the Benedictines in 1089. The magnificent library with its 85,000 volumes and a ceiling fresco by Paul Troger houses, among other things, a fragment of the Nibelungenlied.
This ancient epic might remind you on the way of the historically rich landscape you are crossing. This is also evidenced by prehistoric finds at Schönbühel. This village with the charming castle on the Danube shore you pass on the way to Aggstein, where the eponymous, legendary castle ruin (12th century) beckons 300 meters above the Danube. Here once lived "Knight Schreckenwald" (Jörg Schenk), who extorted tolls from Danube boatmen. Those who refused to pay had to starve on a balcony-like rock ledge, the "rose garden".
Leisurely enjoyment of the landscape is on the agenda until Mautern. Along the way you will encounter small villages with delightful little churches and attractive old miner and farm houses as well as, near Bacharnsdorf, remains of the ancient Roman Danube Limes fortifications, which have been integrated into buildings and gardens here.
