Experience the best of Schwechat

Schwechat lies on the flat Danube plain in Lower Austria, close to Vienna's city limits, beside the small Schwechat river, from which it takes its name. Vienna International Airport, often called Vienna-Schwechat, lies on the town's doorstep, and Schwechat grew around industry and transport. Its name is tied to beer: in the nineteenth century the brewer Anton Dreher developed a pale amber lager here that became known as Vienna lager.

Vienna, whose centre has the Hofburg, the Ring boulevard and St Stephen's Cathedral, is a short way to the north-west. To the east, the Donau-Auen National Park protects the river's wooded floodplain, and the Roman town of Carnuntum, on the Danube near Petronell, has reconstructed buildings and an amphitheatre. Bratislava lies further down the Danube.

Austrian staples fill the local inns: Wiener schnitzel, Tafelspitz boiled beef, goulash and sweet apricot dumplings, with beer from the town's old brewery and wines from the Carnuntum vineyards to the east. The climate is continental, with warm summers, cold winters and mild days in spring and autumn.