Burgenland

Burgenland is the easternmost and least-known of Austria's nine states — which is precisely why it is interesting.

Stretching south from the Neusiedler See toward the Hungarian border, it is a landscape of vines, flat plains and sky. The continental climate — hot summers, cold winters, long autumns — produces wines unlike anything else in Austria. Blaufränkisch grown here is among the country's most serious red wines; the white wines, particularly Welschriesling, carry a mineral directness that rewards attention.

The lake dominates the north. Shallow and warm, the Neusiedler See is one of Europe's few remaining steppe lakes. Its reed beds are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Flamingos, great white egrets and up to 350 bird species have been recorded here. In summer, the lake is warm enough to swim in and shallow enough that children wade out hundreds of metres.

Andau, in the southern Seewinkel, sits at the edge of the Pannonian plain. Flat, open, almost cinematic in its stillness. The Scheiblhofer estate here has transformed the area with a wine operation and resort that has put the region on the international map without losing the quality that drives it.

Burgenland does not announce itself. It rewards the traveller who chooses it deliberately — who comes for wine, cycling, silence and a landscape that asks nothing of you except that you slow down.