EV13 Stage 8: Laa - Valtice

Description

Rested from the thermal spa in Laa an der Thaya, you will set out through a landscape dotted with vineyards to Wildendürnbach, famous for its spiral cellar alley called Šibeniční Vrch (Gallows Hill). From here, past the rest area at the Ottental-Mikulov crossing, it is just a short ride to romantic Mikulov. After Mikulov, the route enters the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape, an area listed among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The history of the Iron Curtain is documented at the Valtice Museum, set up in a former customs building.

Rested from Laa, you will set out through a landscape dotted with vineyards to Wildendürnbach, famous for its spiral cellar alley called Šibeniční Vrch (Gallows Hill). From here, past one of the most picturesque rest areas in Moravia at the Ottental-Mikulov crossing, it is just a short ride to romantic Mikulov. The historical centre of the town, situated at the foot of the Pálava Hills and surrounded by vineyards, offers a square with sgraffito buildings, the tomb of the Dietrichsteins, a castle with a museum and a Jewish quarter with a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery. If you have seen the Mikulov Castle, the Jewish cemetery and if you have taken a look around the landscape from the Holy Hill, you will first follow the Freedom Route in parallel with the railway. Information panels along the route will inform you about the fates of the people who tried to leave in order to find freedom. You can also stop by the so-called Gate to Freedom, a series of steel steles in memory of fifty-three Iron Curtain victims in the years 1948–1989. In nearby Sedlec you can refresh yourself and continue on to Úvaly, which was almost entirely surrounded by barbed wire during the totalitarian era. After riding up to the Valtice–Schrattenberg border crossing, you can visit the Iron Curtain Museum in the former customs house or see one of the outdoor artefacts of the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape, Reistna with a Colonnade, offering a breathtaking view of the Pálava Hills or miniature Austrian fields and vineyards. Along the road down the hill it is just a short ride to Valtice, famous for its castle with a large park and herb garden, but also for the National Wine Salon, where you can taste the best years of Moravian wines in the castle cellars.