Bezau is a handsome valley village, with a church tower, a few grand hotels from the age of early summer tourism and a pleasant, slightly sleepy main street. It stands on the Bregenzerach in the middle of the Bregenzerwald, at the foot of the Bezauer Wanne, the hollow in the mountain wall behind the village, and a cable car climbs to the pastures above if you have time for a walk with a view.
What gives Bezau a particular charm is its railway. A narrow-gauge line once ran up the valley from Bregenz, closed in the 1980s, and a short section of it has been preserved. The Wälderbähnle, a little steam train, chuffs between Bezau and Schwarzenberg on summer weekends, with an open carriage, a whistle and the authentic smell of coal smoke. Railway enthusiasts come from Germany and Switzerland to see it, and even if you only watch it pass, the sight of a narrow-gauge locomotive in a green valley is worth the pause.
The valley's cultural identity is strong. The women's traditional dress, the Juppe, is still worn on holidays, with intricate pleating and dark colours, and the local dialect is thick enough that other Austrians struggle with it. Farming still shapes the economy, with dairies and cheese shops in every village, and there are craft workshops making furniture, ceramics and textiles in a modern, simple way. The valley invested in design and craftsmanship long before those words became fashionable.
On the road, the ride from Bezau is a mixture of valley run and small climbs. The main road runs through villages, with enough bends to keep you alert and enough straight sections to enjoy the scenery. For more of a challenge, side roads climb to hamlets and viewpoints, narrow and sometimes rough, with farm traffic. Weekdays are quiet. The best time of day is before ten in the morning, when mist still sits in the hollows and the light picks out the hay meadows.
Bezau is a good place to stop, with cafes, bakeries and a fuel station in the village or nearby. Dornbirn, about thirteen kilometres away as the crow flies, is the largest town and the best option if you need a workshop or a big supermarket. A coffee and a slice of cake on a terrace here is a very civilised way of passing half an hour.