Krems

The first written record of Krems dates to 995 AD, when Emperor Otto III granted the settlement market rights — making it one of the oldest documented towns in Austria. Nestled at the eastern gateway of the Wachau Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape carved by the Danube over millennia, Krems has witnessed the passage of Crusaders, Habsburg emperors, and generations of winemakers who have cultivated these steep terraced vineyards since the Roman era.

Today, Krems enchants visitors with a medieval old town remarkably preserved through centuries of careful stewardship. The Steiner Tor, a fifteenth-century city gate crowned with baroque onion domes, stands as the town's beloved landmark, while cobblestone lanes wind past pastel-coloured burgher houses, Gothic churches, and the Gozzoburg — a rare surviving example of a thirteenth-century Italian-style palazzo north of the Alps. The Kunsthalle Krems and the Caricature Museum add a contemporary edge to this deeply historical setting, housed in a converted former Dominican monastery.

Wine is the lifeblood of Krems, and the Grüner Veltliner and Riesling produced on the surrounding sun-drenched slopes rank among Austria's finest. The Wachau wine taverns, known as Heurige, invite leisurely afternoons of tasting accompanied by platters of Brettljause — cured meats, local cheeses, dark bread, and pumpkin seed oil. Along the Obere Landstraße, the town's elegant main street, bakeries serve golden Wachauer Laberl rolls and apricot dumplings called Marillenknödel, made from the valley's legendary Wachau apricots.

From Krems, the romantic Wachau Valley unfolds westward, its banks dotted with fairy-tale villages, ruined castles, and terraced vineyards. The clifftop ruins of Dürnstein, where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in 1192, lie just fifteen minutes upstream. The magnificent Benedictine abbey of Melk, a masterpiece of Austrian Baroque architecture, can be reached in forty-five minutes. Cycling the Danube bike path between Krems and Melk is one of Europe's most celebrated rides.

Krems is a treasured stop on Danube river cruises, served by A-ROSA, AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways, Emerald Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Scenic River Cruises, Tauck, TUI River Cruises, Uniworld River Cruises, Viking, and VIVA Cruises. It pairs naturally with nearby ports at Melk, Vienna, and Bratislava. The ideal season runs from late April through October, when the valley's apricot blossoms give way to golden autumn vineyards and the air carries the scent of the grape harvest.