Haslau-Maria Ellend: Nature, cycling and pilgrimage

Haslau-Maria Ellend offers a range of experiences for your stay: nature watching and hiking trails in Maria Ellend, the Römerland Carnuntum Cycling Tour 54, and the pilgrimage site of Maria Ellend.

Nature and trails

The Maria Ellend–Haslau–Regelsbrunn hiking trail follows an old branch of the river where beavers have their feeding sites and kingfishers fly by. White-tailed eagles can be observed as winter visitors from the banks of Maria Ellend. If white-tailed eagles are your particular focus, the winter season is an important consideration when planning.

Another walking route is Stage 4 of the Römerland Carnuntum Way of St. James, which runs from Maria Ellend to Schwechat and partly through the Donau-Auen National Park. A section of trail at Krickldamm in the Maria Ellend district has been made accessible again; the crossing there has been repaired. This gives you both a stage with named endpoints and a specific section of trail at Krickldamm to help plan your route.

The Maria Ellend–Haslau–Regelsbrunn hiking trail can be reached by taking the REX 7 train to Maria Ellend/Donau station, followed by a ten-minute walk. Check current train services before travelling. For a cycling trip, the Römerland Carnuntum Cycling Tour 54 is another option: it is signposted in both directions and runs via Margarethner Weg to Maria Ellend, then along Hofstraße to Maria Ellend station.

The route information provides different kinds of directions: for the hiking trail, it describes travel by train followed by a walk; for Cycling Tour 54, the street names indicate the route to the station. This is useful if you want to decide in advance whether to focus your stay on hiking or cycling.

Pilgrimage and history

According to a tradition that is partly supported by documentary evidence, four children are said to have found a statue of the Virgin Mary on the banks of the Danube during the turbulent period around the middle of the 15th century. A chapel called “Our Lady in Ellend” was first mentioned in 1466. The discovery is part of local tradition; the chapel is associated with a specific year in which it was first mentioned.

There are also historic points of interest at the pilgrimage church and opposite it: the mosaic “Our Lady by the Road” was installed on the façade of Maria Ellend pilgrimage church in 1910. The Lourdes grotto was built in 1909 on the opposite side of the road from the church. The two dates and locations help distinguish these features from the tradition about the statue of the Virgin Mary.

Since 1929, the Missionaries of the Holy Family have provided pastoral care for the parish of Maria Ellend and looked after the pilgrimage site. The mission exhibition offers an insight into their worldwide missionary work. This adds the work of the community responsible for pastoral care and the site to the picture of the pilgrimage.

The monthly pilgrimage takes place on the Sunday after the 13th of each month at 18:00. The main pilgrimage takes place on 15 August at 10:00. As schedules may change, check the dates before travelling. If you want to plan your stay around a pilgrimage, these dates and times are a concrete starting point for your arrangements.

Discover more destinations: Enzersdorf An Der Fischa, Wolfsthal, Sommerein, Göttlesbrunn-Arbesthal, Trautmannsdorf An Der Leitha, Höflein Bei Bruck An Der Leitha, Gallbrunn, Bad Deutsch-Altenburg.

View the main travel guide: Bruck An Der Leitha.