A few of our favourite things about Austria

The city of Villach in Austria's Carinthia region.

A family holiday in Austria? It does sound like a sick joke in these darkened times.

Austria is not one of Europe's more shouty destinations; a middling country in Mitteleuropa, it is a relatively undefined space on the holiday map between the newly trendy cities of the east and the well-trodden paths of tourist Italy.

So when a shocker like the Amstetten story breaks, it all but obliterates our view of the country.

But then, on a much brighter note, it is also the joint host of the Euro 2008 football tournament starting next Saturday, and the thousands of international visitors will go some way to rehabilitating it.

Austria is, of course, bigger than any of the headlines and a family bike ride seems a small way of making that point.

Our route will take us some of the 140 miles along the Drauradweg - a cycle path that follows the river Drau in the southern state of Carinthia.

My sons Tom, 15, and Niko, 11, and my partner Julia are along for the ride.

We start in the hamlet of Berg in Drautal and, straight away, Houston, we have a problem.

Niko's bike is possibly a bit big for him.

The first thing he does after getting on is fall off.

He has a few grazes and is throwing a Basil Fawlty strop, kicking his bike and shouting at it through his tears, "I hate you". We haven't even left the hotel car park.

I offer up a silent prayer that this is not a portent of the six-day slog to come.

Across the river we find the Drauradweg (the R1).

Our first challenge is an impossible gradient up through a pine forest - all of us except Tom have to dismount and wheel the bikes.

So far, so bad.

Out of the woods we become aware of a buzzing noise ahead - like a very large, and possibly very angry bee.

This turns out to be the local model aeroplane club.

The boys gape in amazement as a teenager puts on a virtuoso display with his model helicopter.

He loops the loop, stalls it, flies it upside down, turns it on its axis, stands it on its nose and makes it hop.

Gravity suggests none of this should be possible.

We are hypnotised by the free entertainment and applaud when the craft is landed.

The teenager looks embarrassed.

This is more like it.

The cycling is easier now we are following a wide U-shaped valley along which the river descends.

In the brilliant sunshine the water has the milky opacity of green-grey jade.

Village after village competes for Tyrolean archetypes - bell towers, cuckoo clock chalets, cobbled lanes and aromatic farmyards.

We emerge from another forest on to a big curving meadow and I fully expect the von Trapps to come gambolling over the horizon.

At the inn in Lind we are met by the rollicking strains of an oompa band, replete with dirndls and lederhosen, and I am beginning to suspect the tourist board is pedalling frantically ahead to make sure our path is strewn with Austrian cliches.

But I need not worry; there isn't another tourist in sight.

The festivities are explained by a bank holiday.

The band is wonderfully diverse - girls, boys, old and young, fat and less fat.

Some of the kids in the band make calls on their mobiles between numbers; others have spiky gelled-up hair and Oakley shades - even the oompas are ringing the changes.

After a none too slimming barbecue meal we coast downhill to Sachsenburg where we are overnighting.

We arrive at 3pm feeling a bit heroic.

Niko is very impressed with the cute little market square and its pastel stuccoed buildings, with their elaborate window decorations.

"Wow," he enthuses, "this is a big town. It's got houses ... and everything."

We have not seen our luggage since leaving it in the lobby at Berg.

According to our instructions: "You do not have to worry about your luggage - everything is arranged." My mind strays sceptically to the T5 debacle.

But today, as every day during the trip, the luggage is magically collected in the morning and even more magically reappears exactly as it should at the next stop.

Over dinner at the Gasthof Zum Goldenen Rssl I reflect that we have not heard English since we got here.

It is a throwback to my own childhood holidays; Europe before EasyJet, Ryanair and the internet, a time when continental travel necessitated phrase books and dictionaries.

Carinthia is still hanging on.

No menus are printed in English - we are not in the Dordogne here.

And the food also reflects that: meat broth with dumplings, pork medallions in green pepper sauce and cake with cream to finish.

After the copious mountain air and sunshine, Tom and Niko demolish the ample calories put before them with ravening urgency.

Next morning, we find ourselves being chased by a tractor as we pedal though farmland en route to Spittal.

After Sachsenburg the Drau joins the river Moll and the valley is wider, the sky bigger.

The sun is high again and all is well.

Julia spots a weasel-like animal in the middle of a fallow field.

The boys break into "Weasel Bang", a family nonsense song in the vein of Edward Lear.

The weasel raises its head and sees the three of us in the distance, raucously serenading it.

The Vienna Boys' Choir we are not.

Not unreasonably, the animal is convinced we are mad, or bad, and makes a swift decision to leg it.

After all the rusticity, Spittal is quite the metropolis.

The town centre is built around the Italianate Schloss Porcia, held by some to be the finest renaissance building in the country.

We settle on the terrace cafe overlooking a park.

It is sticky and hot.

The gardens with flickering fountains and plant beds of brilliant red geraniums and palm trees make for very civilised surroundings.

After a restorative cold drink, Niko is ready to share his thoughts.

"It's just like France," he pronounces.

"Fashion, perfume, cheese. Virtually all you need."

But Carinthia is not quite like France.

It is not cosmopolitan.

Part of what makes the area so enticing n its backwoods charm, its quintessentially Austrian character - also unnerves me a little.

I can't help but notice the near-absence of migrant workers.

Where are the Slovaks, the Poles or the Turks? I don't see any black, Asian or even Mediterranean faces in the streets.

What I keep seeing are huge "cult of personality" posters of Jorg Haider, the evidently popular governor of Carinthia - whose politics has long been tainted by a lingering flirtation with Nazism.

Our journey continues for the next couple of days in idyllic weather, despite the doom-mongering of the sartorially challenged weatherman on the local TV.

On the screen Germany is lit up with thunderstorm icons.

Even southern Germany.

But we are having a charmed ride.

We follow the north bank of the jade river closely. Some of the time on the towpath, at other times on minor country roads.

The only thing I would change is the motorway thundering along the valley on stilts, halfway up the mountain on the other side of the river.

Conceived as a family bike ride our schedule is never too demanding.

On some days we clock up all of 25 miles, but still feel we have earned our heavy schnitzel lunches.

At Villach our weather bubble bursts and the thunderstorms break.

We take shelter in a Konditorei, mitigating the furious downpour with comforting Viennese pastry and fabulous coffee.

After Villach, in pursuit of culture and history, we make a point of visiting Schloss Rosegg where we find the most hilarious waxworks in the world.

One room is occupied by the dictators of the 20th century.

We have trouble identifying Stalin and Mussolini, but even their Hitler is barely recognisable.

Just how do you cock up Hitler? In Austria? There is more.

On the next floor, Jaws (the Bond villain) is battering Terry Wogan.

But what has he done to deserve this - is it revenge for all those scathing Eurovision jibes? After some head scratching we deduce that Wogan is meant to be Roger Moore.

Empress Sisi and a very hirsute Franz Joseph pop up next, though for all we know they could be Madonna and Basil Brush.

The following day the Drau widens into a lake where the river has been dammed for a hydroelectric scheme.

We pedal quietly along the raised towpath enjoying the mix of mountains, cliffs, water and forest.

It is amazingly tranquil without the usual clutter associated with open water - no boats, swimmers, jet skis, wind surfers or cafes on the banks.

No houses.

No trace of the globalised, franchised, networked world we live in.

The boys want to swim, so we stop at a tiny jetty. Despite the midday sun the water is cripplingly cold. We are content to dip our toes.

The moment is perfect.

And then we get back on our bikes.

- INDEPENDENT