The Adelaide Hills are one of the most accessible weekend destinations in Australia. Twenty minutes from the Adelaide CBD, easy to drive, full of good food and wine, and small enough to cover meaningfully in a weekend without rushing. The mistake most weekend visitors make is trying to do too much. The Hills reward a slower pace. Here’s a two-day plan that actually gives you time to enjoy where you are.

Day one — Saturday morning. Drive up from Adelaide via the freeway exit at Crafers and detour into Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. The gardens are particularly good in autumn (May, where we are now) and walking the upper paths gives you a strong introduction to the Hills landscape. Allow two hours.

Late morning, drive through to Stirling. Park along the main street. The bookshop, the bakery, and the cafes here are worth your time. Stirling Fine Wines and a couple of the smaller bottle shops carry interesting Adelaide Hills producers, including some you won’t see in Adelaide retailers. Lunch at one of the Stirling cafes — Bracegirdles, the Stirling Hotel, or any of several smaller cafes — sets you up for the afternoon.

Saturday afternoon, head out to a winery for a structured tasting. The Adelaide Hills wine region is dispersed rather than clustered, so picking one or two wineries to visit properly is better than trying to hit five. Shaw + Smith if you can get a booking. Tomich. Sidewood for the broader range. Hahndorf Hill if you want a more accessible experience with food. The booking-required tastings are generally better than the walk-in equivalents — more attention from the cellar door staff, smaller groups, and better wines opened.

Late afternoon, drive across to Hahndorf for a wander. Yes, Hahndorf is touristy. It’s also a genuinely pleasant village with good German food and a couple of legitimate craft producers if you avoid the most kitsch shops. The bakery, Hahndorf Inn, and the smaller cafes are all worth a stop. Sit and have a coffee. Walk the main street twice. Don’t try to do everything.

Saturday evening, accommodation options in the Hills range from boutique B&Bs to country pubs with rooms. Mount Lofty House, the various Stirling and Aldgate B&Bs, and the country pubs at Bridgewater or Crafers all work. Pick something with character; the chain hotels in Adelaide are fine but they don’t add to the weekend the way a Hills accommodation does.

Saturday dinner is where many weekend visitors over-plan. The Hills has several genuinely excellent restaurants — The Lane, Mount Lofty House dining room, the better Hahndorf options — but they’re all booked weeks in advance for Saturday nights. The pub-with-good-food approach is sometimes more pleasant than the formal-restaurant approach. The Crafers Hotel, the Bridgewater Mill, and several others fit this. You eat well, you’re not rushed, and you’re not paying premium-restaurant prices for an ordinary night.

Day two — Sunday morning. Coffee somewhere with a view if the weather cooperates. Mount Lofty Summit (clear morning) gives you the city view back across to Adelaide. The walking trails around the summit are short but pleasant. Allow an hour or two.

Sunday late morning into early afternoon: a market or a single bigger property. The Stirling Markets (first Sunday of the month), the Adelaide Hills Farmers Market, or one of the larger food-focused properties — Beerenberg Farm or Hahndorf Berry Farm during their respective seasons. Don’t try to do all of these. Pick one and spend real time there.

Sunday lunch can be a long lazy affair. Several Hills wineries do excellent lunch — The Lane, Bird in Hand, Tomich. Most require booking. Lunch with a glass of wine on a Hills veranda is the kind of thing you came up here for. Don’t rush back to Adelaide to do other things.

Sunday afternoon, drive back to Adelaide via a different route from the way you came up. The Mount Barker road back gives you different scenery. Stop at Stirling on the way down if you missed it on Saturday, or at Lobethal for the Lobethal Bierhaus. Be back in Adelaide by late afternoon.

The mistakes weekend visitors make: trying to fit five wineries in a day, eating dinner at the most-booked-out restaurant on a Saturday night without a booking, doing Hahndorf and Stirling in a single hurried afternoon, not building in any unstructured time, and assuming the Hills are smaller than they actually are. Driving between the various clusters takes longer than it looks on a map.

Done well, the Adelaide Hills weekend is one of the most relaxing short trips you can do from any Australian capital. Done badly, it’s an exhausting series of short stops that doesn’t capture what the place actually offers. Slow down. Stay longer at each stop. The Hills aren’t going anywhere.