EuroVelo 13 Iron Curtain Trail

EuroVelo 13 runs along the Austrian border with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, where the contemporary history of the East-West division of Europe can be experienced as you cycle along the former death strip, now the “Green Belt”. As historically interesting and naturally beautiful as the route is, the often hilly topography requires a certain level of fitness.

For almost 40 years the Iron Curtain divided Europe into East and West, until it was torn down in 1989. A wide strip along the border was depopulated, militarised and had become an impassable barrier. The renaturalisation, has turned the area into a habitat for rare and endangered animal and plant species and thus into the European Green Belt. Coming from the Bavarian- Czech border, you can visit the Cistercian monastery in Vyssi Brod (CZ), the “Museum of the Green Belt” in Leopoldschlag and the “Green Belt Center” in Windhaag/Upper Austria. Other highlights along the route include the Harbach healing moor-baths, the Kuenringerstadt of Weitra and its brewery, as well as the “Iron Curtain” exhibition in the castle and the “Iron Curtain” open-air museum at the border crossing of Kadolec / Nove Hrady.

Along the route you can also pass the Renaissance town of Slavonice, Austria‘s smallest town, Hardegg, and the cross-border National Park. As the next stops on EuroVelo 13, we recommend the bunker complex and the remains of the Iron Curtain near Satov (CZ), the historic wine town of Retz with its underground labyrinth and Laa an der Thaya, which boasts a historic town centre and renowned thermal baths. We continue through the Galgenberg cellar alley to the historic town of Mikulov, where you can take in its castle and the nearby “Gate to Freedom” monument nearer to Sedlec.

The route continues through the UNESCO cultural landscape near Lednice (CZ) and onto Valtice, which has its own Iron Curtain Museum. Finally, we go through one of the most exiting wetlands in Central Europe, the March/Thaya floodplains from Hohenau to Devinska Nova Vez. To get there you cross the spectacular “Bridge of Freedom” to Schlosshof, the second largest baroque palace complex of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. On the Slovakian side, you cycle via Devin /Thebes Castle at the confluence of the Morava and the Danube, from where a ferry goes to Hainburg. Hainburg is located only a few kilometers from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Alternatively, you can choose the Austrian parallel route between Hohenau and Schloss Hof. From Bratislava, the route leads along the border to the historic bridge near Andau, on to Lake Neusiedl, the historic city of Sopron and finally south to Lutzmannsburg and Szentgotthard (HU).