Culture

As one of the oldest cultural landscapes in Austria, the Wachau was declared as a protected zone as early as in 1955, and in the year 1994, attained the European Diploma in Nature Protection. In December 2000, it was elevated to the status of a UNESCO-World Heritage site. This was a well deserved honour for a cultural landscape where people have been settling for thousands of years, living in harmony with nature and have merged with it in a truly special fashion.

Looking to the right bank of the Danube you will find the monastery Schönbühel, the Aggstein ruins and the Baroque abbey Goettweig. Looking to the left bank you find the village of Willendorf, the shipmuseum and the Tausendeimerberg (mountain of thousand buckets) at Spitz, the secured church of Weissenkirchen, Dürnstein – the pearl of Wachau - with it’s lovely monastery and castle as well as the city of Krems with it’s great historic center.

Not forget to mention the beautiful traditional costume of the women with it’s precious gold-bonnet (source: www.wachau.at).