The burial mounds in Zagersdorf’s Urbarialwald forest have been designed as a historic wine memorial site and are protected. Their archaeological connection to winegrowing offers a special way to explore the town’s history. Other themes in Zagersdorf range from sacred visual art and a Roman road to the musical tradition of the Burgenland Croats.
Winegrowing History in Urbarialwald Forest
Grape pips of the “Vitis Fini Fera Vinifera” variety were found in an earthenware vessel in one of the burial mounds in Zagersdorf’s Urbarialwald forest. The variety is similar to Grüner Sylvaner. This gives the wine memorial site a specific archaeological connection: the focus is not only on remembering winegrowing, but also on a find from a named grape variety.
A grape pip enlarged 1,000 times has been erected at the find site. This representation offers a different focal point from the earthenware vessel containing the grape pips: it makes the individual pip a visible motif at the memorial site. Together, the find and its enlargement offer two different ways of engaging with this place—through the archaeological object itself, and through its form translated into a much larger scale.
A Bilingual Trail Through the Vineyards
Created by the Zagersdorf Winegrowing Association, the wine trail is Austria’s first bilingual wine trail, in German and Croatian. It runs for 3.5 km through the vineyards. Here, the focus is not on a single find, but on winegrowing as a landscape theme. Its length and bilingual design give the trail a clearly defined character. If you are interested in winegrowing, you can distinguish between the archaeological perspective of the burial mounds and a trail through the vineyards.
Chapel and Wayside Shrines
The Chapel of the Exaltation of the Cross in GroĂźgebirge is a simple rectangular building with a gabled roof. A gabled roof consists of two sloping roof surfaces that meet at the ridge. The altarpiece, dating from 1727, depicts Christ carrying the cross. The chapel thus brings together two specific features: a simple architectural form and a dated image with a clearly identified subject.
The “Trinity Column” figurative wayside shrine is another architectural landmark. It is described as a tall column with a lily capital and a Mercy Seat group on a band of clouds. Another figurative wayside shrine, the “Bell Madonna”, stands at Hauptstraße 76 and is a listed monument. Together with the chapel, these monuments broaden the picture of Zagersdorf to include religious architecture and visual art—an independent theme alongside winegrowing and its archaeological traces.
Roman Road and Cultural Tradition
The Roman road from Scarbantia (Sopron-Ă–denburg) to Vindobona (Vienna) is still well preserved near Zagersdorf. The paired names make clear which endpoints the historic road connection refers to. It adds another historical dimension to the local monuments, reaching beyond individual buildings or finds.
Tamburica Zagersdorf maintains a different kind of cultural tradition: founded in 1971, the music group preserves the customs and language of the Burgenland Croats through its music. The focus here is not on a single object, but on the connection between music, customs and language. This sets it apart from both the archaeological history of finds and sacred visual art.
Which Theme Suits Your Trip?
The nature of each theme can help you choose: the wine trail is defined by its specific length and route through the vineyards, while the burial mounds represent archaeological finds and memorial culture. The chapel and wayside shrines offer architectural and artistic motifs, while Tamburica represents the cultivation of musical culture. This lets you shape your stay around landscape, history or cultural tradition without combining these distinct themes into a single route.
Discover more destinations: Mörbisch Am See, Wulkaprodersdorf, Eisenstadt, Sankt Margarethen Im Burgenland, Loretto, Neufeld An Der Leitha, Schützen Am Gebirge, Oslip
Back to the parent travel overview: Eisenstadt.
