Cabrio ride hint : three countries and wine

Moravia (the eastern part of Czechia) is a very nice and mostly somehow chilled part of the middle Europe. One of the feelings from there is, they don't hurry too much. Some weeks ago we did a trip to the Bata Channel, which is in the middle part of Moravia. This time, we did a part of southern Moravia, which is a well-known wine area as well as the close region of Austria. The trip was a bit longer, here is a map :

It leads through 3 countries, starting in Bratislava/Slovakia, going through the old border cross Lanzhot to Moravia. Breclav, Lednice and Valtice are the orientation and visit points. There is much more in this area, for example Mikulov is a very nice town, so maybe next time. Than the trip leads to Austria, again through a very small local border cross and continues from the austrian wine area direction south-southeast to the river Morava (german : March). And than back to Bratislava.


 You can see it on google maps here.




Cabrio ride hint #1 : the way from Malacky through Studienka to Kuty. Click to see it on the map. It goes through a part of Zahorie full of woods. Watch out, these are military woods, but we are living in a peaceful area, so nothing special. The road is in good condition, most of it is through the woods, around some recreational area and lakes, some villages, most of the time empty from cars.



It looks like this :

The road leads than to Kuty and Lanzhot, the border cross to Czechia out of the highway and continue to the czech town Breclav. Than there are 2 important town names : Lednice and Valtice. In Breclav is a crossroads, with one way to Lednice and the second to Valtice, both towns are around 10km far. You will most probably spend more time in Lednice, so choose this one first.

The whole town of Lednice was inscribed in 1996 on the UNESCO World Heritage List (together with the twin manor of Valtice/Feldsberg) as "an exceptional example of the designed landscape that evolved in the Enlightenment and afterwards under the care of a single family.". Lednice is really beautiful. It's history goes at least 700 years back. Go to look around the palace and especially into the surrounding park. The park itself is huge, very very nice with things like 1000 years old trees, a glass-house full of plants, a minaret, a lake and canal and some tourist attractions. It is a beautiful 2-3 hours stop on a road trip.

Some pictures from the park :

Some practical hints : you can read more about tourist atractions here. Better mind the Onyx restaurant in front of the entrance to the park, it's slow and strange. The restaurant (Zahradni restaurace) down the hill, close to the parking place is much better. And watch out of the cyclists, this is a wine tasting area.

Cabrio ride hint #2 : the alley between Lednice and Valtice. The legend is saying, this was a much favoured place of Petr Bezruč, one of the fundamental czech poets. It is 7.5 km long alley between the fields and a pond, wonderful in good weather. One can feel, what happened there, when no cars existed - walking people and carriages. Behind the wheel I had a feeling to drive slowly and enjoy the environment. It looks like this :

Valtice is a nice and sleepy historical town very good for a next walk, maybe coffee and buying some of the excellent local wines. There are many possibilities for that. Next orientation point is Poysdorf in Austria, there are road signs to it in the town. In the afternoon you can follow also cars with austrian numberplates, which are returning home.

Btw. until now the built-in GPS navigation in my Saab was useless. I do not have slovak maps, in Czechia it doesn't contains Lednice and showed some some very strange roads. Valtice are there, Poysdorf as well. That's why I always have a paper map with me and for all cases google maps in the smartphone.

Cabrio ride hint #3 : Poysdorf - Dürnkrut - Marchegg - Hainburg an der Donau are the main places on the ~90km long austrian part. Starting in one of the austrian wine areas with wonderful roads, small hills and not too much traffic. The towns and villages on the road seemed to be very clean but empty. Where are all the people, are they living their lifes inside of the houses ? Or somewhere in the Easter holidays with children ?

There are many wind power generators around and I realised not the first time how radical these propellers change the character of the countryside. I fully agree with many of the green technologies and renewable energy sources but do these huge things really generate that much of power as they change everything around ? My mother lives on a hill in Bratislava with a view to austrian fields. When I was a child, it was a very flat view, these days I've counted around 90 propellers.

Whatever, for a trip, this is a nice part of the world. The whole ~220km roundtrip with all the stops took around 6-7 hours. It's a nice trip for two as well as for a family with children. Not too long, not too short, with many stop possibilities.