The Joy of Hiking and Making New Friends Highly recommended!…read more Saturday's Hobbit Hike through the hills, woods and pasturelands surrounding the village of Michelbach, 45 minutes NW of Vienna, was as lovely as Karin's website suggested. With Karin as our host and guide, our group of 5 (from Austria (2), Brazil, (2) and the US (1)) really clicked. And we alternated between enjoying fresh air, lovely farmland, woods and fun conversations. These trail chats formed and reformed -- in the easy way that only hiking permits. Karin was a warm, well-organized, and easy-going host. I look forward to more trips with her, as a great way to explore the Austrian countryside and to make new friends.

Karin arranged a meeting spot and transportation to the Grand Canyon of Austria for our adult group…read moreof 6 - it was a spectacular trek through the valley and up some steep climbs. Karin offered us options along the way and stopped for photos. At the end of the hike we stopped to swim in the natural water formations and had lunch a beautiful hut that served delicious local food and cold beer! A highlight of our time in the Vienna area with Karin who is fun, friendly and a natural and knowledgeable guide!

The Leopoldsberg is a good tour for tourists visiting Vienna. You need about half a day time for it…read morebut you will not regret it. Up there there is a tremendous view about the River Danube and the older and newer districts of Vienna. You can reach the Leopoldsberg either with a bus - or - if you fancy a little hike you can travel with the "U4" to Heiligenstadt, then ask for the Bus to "Kahlenbergdoerfl" (just print it and show it to someone at Heiligenstadt) and then you can climb the Leopoldsberg using the famous "Nasenweg" (Nose-path) along the "nose" of the Leopoldsberg. Be sure to take a camera with you.

This is a nice cluster of architectural buildings and monuments and accessible by car or hiking up…read moreCity Trail 1. St Joseph Catholic Church is in the center of the area and across the street is a ceramic commemoration of the battle of Kahlenberg in 1683, this ceramic relief was created in 1960, There is also a small monument to Kaiserin Elisabeth and the Stefanie-Warte tower.

If you have time you have to visit this amazing location! We did the Hop off Hop on tour and went…read moreoff the beaten path to this bus that takes you into the countryside view. You won't regret it. It allows you a glimpse of what the birds see when they look into the city of Vienna.

Stadtwanderweg 1a is not one of my favorite trails. It covers the distance of 11 Kilometer & takes…read moreabout 3 hours to complete, on a normal pace. The starting point is at Nußdorfer Platz, reachable by Strassenbahnlinie D & Schnellbahn S40. We begin on a long walk along the Donaustrandpromenade, next to the Danube river. I guess this was supposed to serve as a warm-up for what awaits us next. Suffice to say, we were greeted by steep way up on Nasenweg. After 30 minutes of mentally exhausting climb of stairs & concrete road, we finally made it to the top, bleh~ We managed to catch the orange fiery sky as the sun sets & the view of Vienna at dusk. The way down the concrete road is equally steep, thus a good pair of sports shoes is highly recommended. Direction: Nußdorfer Platz - Donaustrandpromenade - Kahlenbergerdorf - Nasenweg - Leopoldsberg - entlang der Höhenstraße zum Kahlenberg - Kahlenberger Straße bis Abzweigung Eichelhofweg - nach Norden (zuerst Feld-, dann Waldweg) zum Waldbachsteig - Kahlenbergerdorf - Donaustrandpromenade - Nußdorfer Platz Rest stops: Restaurant Leopoldsberg beziehungsweise Kahlenberg Heuriger Sirbu (Kahlenbergerstraße) Heuriger Klapf (Eiserne Hand-Gasse) Heurige und Restaurants im Kahlenbergerdorf und in Nußdorf P.S. For those interested in Stadtwanderweg, kindly inquire at the info center (behind Rathaus) for hiking maps around Wien.

My wife had bought me a wine tour on a bicycle for my birthday. Honestly, I was less than…read moreenthusiastic about going, but didn't say anything because that just would have been rude and unappreciative. Not because this stuff doesn't interest me, but because I had been working a lot of 12-hour shifts that week, and wanted to just stay home, vej out, sleep, and be sad on my birthday, hahah... But I kept an open mind, and gave it a try. I even invited a friend of mine to join me. It was a good move. We got together with our diverse tour group, as well as our tour guide who was from Spain. He explained everything in detail as best as he could, though to be honest with you, toward the end of the tour, we didn't seem to be paying much attention to the details anymore and just wanted to taste more different wines, no matter what it was! My biggest concern was the bikes we were going to use. I was also apprehensive initially because I though we'd be getting the usual cheap rental city bikes, that are usually heavy, slow, and uncomfortable. I couldn't have been more wrong; they gave us quality bikes, that were very comfortable to ride, equipped with a 10-speed gear, for going up small inclines and hills. It was great, and we all really enjoyed the tour. We also got a bit of exercise as well, biking a total of about 20 km throughout the day. Of course, that's not all in one setting; we would bike maybe 5 km first, taste some wines in a small town, bike another 5-8 km to another town, etc. You will also get a beautiful view of the Wachau Valley vinyards and also have an opportunity to hike up a hill to see a beautiful fortress nearby. If you are in Vienna for a little bit and have some time, this is one tour you definitely do not want to miss. You're getting exercise on a bike, you enjoy the beautiful views outside the city, taking in some fresh air, tasting different wines of the region, and most important of all, making new friends in your tour group! It's just a wonderful experience.

Very nice day of biking and wine tasting. Made especially good by the tour guide. He was a font of…read moreknowledge of the history and culture of the area. With good humor and insight he explained the 2000 plus years of history of the region. The biking was not terribly strenuous mostly on the flat. The wine was tasty, and the fellow bikers were fun to get to know.