Valtice in Südmähren (South Moravia) is a wonderful destination from Vienna. Valtice for centuries…read morewas known by its German name of Feldsberg and indeed was ethnically Austrian until given to Czechoslovakia at the end of the First World War, Valtice is especially known as the ancestral home of the noble family Liehtenstein and their impressive Baroque Schloss and family church dominate the town. Together with neighboring Lednice - also a former home of the Liechtenstein family - this rolling hill area is the largest planned landscape on the planet and is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through this scenic countryside and little towns, you can hike, bike, and use a boat to explore (which are the three things I did) in addition to the usual car, bus, and train. Oh and did I mention that the village of Valtice is the center of the Moravian wine industry. There are lots of tasty and interesting wines to try and cool places to do so....Prost....Na zdraví. And it is less than a kilometer to the Austrian border if after drinking way too much wine you can't find the train station and decide to walk all the way back to Vienna!

I think my experience was marred by a few things. It was a hot afternoon and the space is not air…read moreconditioned and tours are only in Czech. I knew about the language option, but I felt the tour guide did not make an effort to make foreigners feel welcome. The opposite in fact. His primary concern was to check if we put on the odd slippers over our shoes to protect the floor. BTW, none of the guides wore any (not leading by example). I wish I skipped the tour and visited the wine cellar instead. However, by the end of the tour I was hot and just wanted to catch the next bus home. Overall, I expected more. If you are visiting Mikulov, it is worth stopping by. The best part was the baroque garden entrance. It was small but made an impression. The rest did not. The interiors were a bit lackluster if you have been to castles in some of the larger cities. The grounds are mostly lawns. I think in the fall it might be more interesting with some foliage change? Bathrooms require 10 crowns unless you use the one out on the street (free).