Hahndorf is a little piece of Silesia, Prussia and Germany in the Adelaide Hills. Proudly declaring itself "Australia's Oldest German Town" and offering lots of sausages, sauerkraut, steins of beer, window boxes with dense floral displays, and Lutheran churches, it is quintessentially Central Europe in the Adelaide Hills.

This charming town is characterised by shady, tree-lined streets; lots of shop signs in Teutonic script; and busloads of German tourists being entertained in cafes, beer halls and restaurants run by the descendants of the town's early German settlers. Today it is one of South Australia's premier tourist attractions. There are few places in the country where you can drive through typically Australian countryside and, quite suddenly, enter a world which seems to have been lifted out of Europe.