Hardegg

Hardegg has town rights and fewer than a hundred and fifty inhabitants, which makes it the smallest town in Austria, sitting on a bend of the Thaya at the bottom of a wooded gorge with a large castle on the rock above it. The size is a consequence of the border: the Thaya here was the Iron Curtain, the bridge to Czechoslovakia was cut in 1949, the town found itself in a closed military zone at the end of a dead-end road, and it emptied. The bridge reopened in 1990 and now carries walkers and cyclists into the Podyjí park on the Czech side. The castle, medieval and heavily restored in the nineteenth century, has a museum including material on Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. The Thayatal National Park headquarters is above the town.

History

Hardegg Castle is first named in a deed of 1145, the Counts of Plain acquired it around 1187, and Hardegg is first recorded as a town in 1290; on the border with Bohemia, it was laid waste in the Hussite Wars in 1425 and passed to the Habsburgs in 1483. Emperor Maximilian I gave it to the Prueschenk family and made them Counts of Hardegg in 1499, the castle decayed from the Thirty Years' War on, and the Khevenhüller family bought it and rebuilt it in the late 19th century to plans by Carl Gangolf Kayser; the bridge across the Thaya to Čížov in Moravia, built in 1874, is still the only link with the Czech side (Wikipedia, Hardegg).

What's there

• Austria's smallest town - fewer than a hundred and fifty people with town rights.
• A reopened border bridge - cut in 1949, restored in 1990, now for walkers.
• A castle on the rock - medieval, restored in the nineteenth century, with a museum.
• The Thaya gorge - the wooded valley the town sits at the bottom of.

When to go

April to October; the castle closes over winter. Half a day.

Things to know

It is genuinely tiny, with very few services. The castle has seasonal hours. The road in is a dead end and parking is limited. Taking the bridge into Czechia needs your passport.

Nearby

Thayatal National Park is above; Podyjí is across the bridge; Retz is south.

Key facts