Thayatal National Park, Austria

Travel Report

Characteristics
We visited this park in the summer. It is a park on the border with the Czech  Republic. On the other side of the river Thaya (called „Dyje“ on the Czech side), there is a Czech National Park Podyji. We discovered both of them.

The official information about the Thayatal National Park says the following:
With a total surface of 1,330 ha. the National Park Thayatal is the smallest in Austria, and yet one can explore nature’s diversity here in small and big ways.
The river Thaya meanders over 26 km through a unique valley landscape.  The diversified geological bedrock with granite, gneiss, and schist, of a respectable age of up to 600 million years, is fascinating. The National Park is exceptional as these rocks belong to the oldest mountain range in Austria. 
The Thayatal is one of the last semi-natural valley landscapes in Central Europe.
It is an impressive valley with steep cliffs and gentle meadows, natural forests, and fascinating fauna. Further official information about the park you find here.

RV Places
The National Park Thayatall is a camper-user-friendly. There is a parking space for campers, next to the building serving as a visitor center:

Camper Site Thayatal National Park

The coordinates: 48.845026, 15.859805
The parking space is very nice, clean, calm, and equipped with everything that campers need:
There is a dump station, incl. in the price per night, which was 9,20 Eur (one camper with two persons) in 2020.
There is a power source, the price is 1 Eur for 6 hours.
There is a drinking water source, the price is 1 Eur for 100 liters.
The camper parking space is open all year round.

Water and Power Sources
How to arrive

Mountain biking and hiking trails

This is an official map of hiking and cycling trails on the territories of both National Parks (Thayatal in Austria and Podyji in the Czech Republic), hiking trails in red color, cycling trails in green color

We did our own mountain biking trail which was a combination of various existing trails, with that we started and ended on the parking space where we parked our camper.

The map of our trail that we named Thayatal and Podyji National Park is shown here, our trail is marked in purple with white crosses:

An interactive map of the trail together with the downloadable recorded GPX file you find here:

Attractions & Recommendation:

There are many attractions and interesting places in the Thayatal National Park and Podyji National Park:

  1. The magic Castle in the village Hardegg

  2. The bridge (for hikers and cyclists only)between Austria and the Czech Republic

  3. The only preserved piece of the iron curtain on the border from the old days (in the the village Cizov)

  4. The castle Vranov

  5. The dam Vranov

  6. The castle Novy Hradek

  7. The ruins of the castle Kaya

We recommend visiting the National Park Thayatal because of many reasons. Some of them:

  • It is a camper-friendly national park

  • There are beautiful well-preserved nature and beautiful meanders of the river Thaya (Dyje)

  • On the territory of the National Park there is a rare project trying to bring a wildcat back to Austria after this species disappeared in the last century, you can find out more about it here

  • There are plenty of hiking and cycling trails

  • Both national parks are not crowded and very well maintained

You can see our photos in here.

Our videoblogs about the National Park Thayatal you find here.