Trail Name: Weinwandern in Carnuntum: Hoeflein Variante

Trail Type: An easy, family-friendly/carriage-friendly, short distance circuit, with well-maintained trail surfaces that are tarmacked or otherwise hardpacked, and with specific trail markings that are mostly easy to follow and are fairly well-updated.

Length: total: 9.7 kilometers/ 6 miles

Convenient to: Vienna, Austria

Marking: Rectangles with a horizontal white bar across the middle, flanked by similar red bars above and below it; bearing the words: Weinwandern in Carnuntum

Trail Description: This circuit trail is part of a larger circuit trail and other circuits within the larger one which follow across the undulating heights above the Pannonian Plains. This circuit went from village to forested heights and through vineyards on easy inclines and declines, and finished by the local wine taverns.

Trailhead: Hoeflein: St Ulrich Church, Kiragassl

Parking: Hoeflein: St Ulrich Church, Kiragassl

Public Transportation Options:

Rail: Nearest rail station is in Bruck an der Leitha, with connections via OBB to Vienna

Bus: The Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region (VOR) serves the local villages and connects to Vienna. See http://www.vor.at/willkommen-bei-vor/

Suggested Stages: Not applicable

Trail Itinerary-Reference Points: (Clockwise – unlike my hike)

Hoeflein: St Ulrich Church, Kiragassl, Hoher Weg/”Kellergasse”, Weinbergstr (crosses Spillern), Weinbergsiedlung Second right/straight, through woods, then along vineyard/tree line, Schuettenberg, right on a dirt trail, right turn, then a short detour right into woods to Josefskapelle and back, Roman Ruins, Roemerstr-Dorfstr-Kirchenberg

Representative Trail Photo:

 

Restrooms: None observed

Attractions on or near Trail:

Along the trail there are 3 educational sites: The Roman villa, a wine educational trail with panels, and a bee/nature site with panels

Tasting along the Trail: Heuriger on the Kellergasse (Variable open hours)

Alternative Options:

Running: Easily possible along the entire trail.

Hiking: The large Weinwandern in Carnuntum circuit (31.6 kilometers/19.5 miles) is a two-day hike, but offers four smaller circuits/variants within it: The Hoeflein Variante, the Goettlesbrunn Variante, the Arbesthal Variante, and the Stixneusiedl Variante (all roughly 10 kilometers/6 miles)

Biking: The 44 kilometers/27 miles-long Winzer Tour Carnuntum covers this area and a bit more.

Car: Weinstrasse Carnuntum, covers the Carnuntum area (south of Vienna), east almost to the Danube by Bratislava, Slovakia, and south to Bruck an der Leitha.

Additional Information:

Regional: http://www.donau.com/de/roemerland-carnuntum-marchfeld/

Trail segment specific: http://www.outdooractive.com/de/wanderung/donau-niederoesterreich/weinwandern-in-carnuntum-variante-hoeflein/1517684/

Comments:

These trails provide a great opportunity to get to know an up and coming wine region in eastern Austria, and are fairly easy to access from Vienna.

I chose this circuit out of the three other small ones because of time constraints and the fact it had a nice forest segment. (The Goettlesbrunn Variante circuit also shares part of this circuit and has a nice amount of wooded section too.) Given more time and more logistical planning, I would definitely have done the bike circuit as well, as this is great biking country for recreational (and even reasonably fit leisure) cyclists.

The local communities are gearing up for tourism, and offer good trails, and some great wines in inviting wineries with generous open hours located in the villages along the circuit, but especially in Goettlesbrunn.

A new fence erected along the forest at the top of the rise, closed off the old trail. The old sign still indicated heading straight (and still pertains to the Goettlesbrunn Variante circuit), but new yellow signs, just before the fence, indicate the new way.

BTW: The German spelling for both Gottlesbrunn and Hoflein have umlauts (two little dots) over the “o”. In English, this transliterates to an o and e; Hence Goettlesbrunn and Hoeflein. Both the German and the English variations will deliver the desired results in most search engines.