Mariazell has been a place of pilgrimage for more than eight hundred years, and you notice it from a long way off, when the green spire of the basilica appears above the forest. According to tradition, a monk named Magnus brought a wooden statue of the Virgin here in 1157, and the town grew up around the chapel built to hold it. Over the centuries the shrine became the most important in the Habsburg lands, visited by emperors and by pilgrims on foot from Vienna, Hungary, Bohemia and as far as the Balkans. The basilica today is a Baroque church built around the older Gothic one, and the little statue stands in a silver chapel at the heart of it.
The town is set in a bowl of mountains in Styria, on the edge of the Alps, with spruce forest and limestone peaks around it. Nearby, the Erlaufsee, a small, clear lake, and the high plateau of the Hochschwab massif offer walking in summer, and in winter, the town has a modest ski area. The local speciality is honey gingerbread, made by bakers who have been at it since the days of the pilgrims, and the streets around the basilica are lined with shops selling candles, carved wood and sweet things.
The roads leading to Mariazell are what a motorcyclist hopes for. From the north, the route climbs through the Lower Austrian hills over passes such as the Annaberg, with a long series of bends through forest and meadow, a good surface and views of the pre-Alps. It is a popular route with Viennese riders and with day trippers, so on fine weekends it is busy, with plenty of motorcycles. Tight bends alternate with open stretches, and the road is well signed, with speed cameras and police checks. Expect mist, rain and cold in the high sections, even in summer, and ice in the early and late season.
Mariazell has fuel and a good range of restaurants, serving traditional Austrian and Styrian food, such as Schnitzel, dumplings and strudel, and the town has a wide range of guest houses. In summer and at the major pilgrimage dates, the place is crowded, so book accommodation ahead. Kindberg, thirty-two kilometres to the south-east, is the next larger town, and St Pölten is the main city to the north. The best months are May, June and September, when the air is clear and the roads are drier.