Mühlviertel ..the bear round

Road Tour 4

Mühlviertel " the bear round"

Today we head into the Mühlviertel and this time we leave our market square heading west and take a few metres in altitude to St. Oswald, straight through the village and round to the border to Upper Austria and on to Waldhausen, in Waldhausen we keep left towards the centre and continue on the L1436 along the Sarming stream.

We enjoy the ride through the romantic valley and catch a brief glimpse of the Strudengau. Once we reach the Danube, we roll a few kilometres upstream to the PERLE of the Strudengau; it's not long since we left Ysper, but Grein is not to be missed and the ice cream at SCHÖRGI is famous far and wide.

After the short break we turn right on the L573 to Bad Kreuzen and then left on the L1432 to the first highlight of our tour to St.Thomas am Blasenstein, where we quickly visit the LUFTG`SELCHTEN PFARRER and scramble through the KREUZWEHLUCK`N.Then we take the Güterweg Staub to Mönchdorf and at the junction to the B124 we keep left to Pierbach, here slowly because the right turn into the Naarental is quickly overlooked and that would be a real pity because the winding valley is little travelled and very scenic.

After the Naarental, we take the L576 to Bad Zell and continue via Gutau; Kefermarkt to Freistadt, where we plan a longer stay, as the historic old town and the market square are a must-see and there is the largest selection of food to satisfy our hunger.

Freshly fortified, we enjoy the wide roads to Weitersfeld and Unterweisenbach as far as Königswiesen and if there haven't been enough bends so far (there are supposed to be some), you'll really get your money's worth from now on as there aren't many straight sections until our second highlight.

Our bear round here in the bear forest lives up to its name and our seven brown bears are really cute to look at.

After visiting Master Petz, we head through the largest contiguous forest area in Austria, the WEINSBERGER WALD, through typical Waldviertel communities such as Gutenbrunn, Bärnkopf and Dorfstetten back to the tranquil Yspertal.