Autumn and spring are great times of the year to go hiking in the wine country, just south of Graz. You can read more about the area and it’s famous ‘Southern Styria Wine Road here. It’s a beautiful area to drive around and visit all the vineyard tasting rooms and buschenschanks. You can see a list of all the hikes here.

Many hikes are along roads, but we discovered a great 10.6 km trail mostly through the vineyards and woods, with only short sections along roads – ‘Glanzer Weintour mit Weinkultur’, you can view a map on-line here with a list of all the buschenschanks on the way. The walk is circular so you can join at any point. It says 3 hours, but it’s a lot of up and down so I recommend 4 hours, including stops to admire the stunning views. And allow even more time if you plan to stop at buschenschanks along the way (check the opening times before you set out).

There is also the option of doing a shorter kid friendly walk by parking at the Legat buschenschank (191 on the map) and walking for an hour to Tischermonegg (164), have lunch and then walk back. It’s mostly all through the vineyards and stunning views, my favourite section of the whole hike!

For the longer hike, we started at the car park near to the Tischermonegg buschenschank the “P” at top of the map, if it’s full then you can always find a parking spot at the “P” by Legat – 191 and start from there), From Tischermonegg we hiked up the grassy hill (marked with the yellow sign below) next to the restaurant to the view point overlooking the area. After admiring the view, join the path again and walk through the vineyards, following the Green ‘Glanzer Weintour’ signs or the green markings – the trail is well marked the whole way. (We did the circular route anti-clock wise, saving the buschenshanks with the nice views for towards the end).

After a short while, you will head through the woods which has steep downhill slopes – these can be slippery, especially if it has been raining, so wear good shoes! You will appear into the vineyards again, and see your first buschenschank stop ‘ Adam Ewald’. This a nice place to stop if you have children as they have table tennis, football table and small playground. It’s a pretty garden but no real views. So continue onto a further buschenschank if you want to relax with a view of the vineyards.

There is a short section along the road, and then back into the woods again going uphill. It’s well sign posted, so just keep looking out for them. At the top you will go into the vineyards again with great views over the area. And shortly you will arrive at the restaurant Sabathihof Dillinger (they do hot food and great deserts!). Take a sharp left here onto the road to continue). There is a fairly long section here along the road which turns into a quite a busy one, but don’t lose hope, towards the top of the hill, past the small village, you will see the path turns off into the vineyards again. There are three buschenchanks along the way now all with terraces with stunning views. Legat is a charrming tiny buschenschank with vintage rustic look, we didn’t stop at the second – Brenner but we did make a final stop at the third – Fellner which has a big terrace with lots of tables. Then it’s just another 10 or 15 mins back through the woods to your car. It was a lovely hike, just be prepared for lots of up and down and have good shoes for the steeper parts.