Austria Off the Beaten Path Tips by Paul2001

To be honest visiting Bergenz was less than a thrill but I did like this one attraction, the Martinsturm. The Martinsturm is located in what is essentially the old town of Bergenz, up on the slopes of the mountain overlooking the city. The tower is home to a military museum that was somewhat interesting. From the top of the tower there are fine views of Bergenz and Lake Constance.

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Phone: 05574-466-32

Any traveler visiting Bergenz has to travel to the top of Pfander Mountain. This mountain can be scaled either by foot or you can drive to the top. However the most common way to get to the top is by cable car. This has been expanded considerably since I visited back in 1993. At the top of Pfander is what most people might want to call a zoo even if the owners of the property would rather refer to it as the Pfander Wildlife Park. Anyway there are lots of animals indigenous to the Alps including mountain goats, deer and wild boar. They are contained in large fenced in compounds in an attempt to make it look unzoolike. It is free to access which is good because the ride up the cable car is going to set you back 9.50 Euros.
The real reason I visited the mountain top was for the views which are quite stunning. From the summit you can see up and down Lake Constance. Sadly there was an overcast on the day I visited or I think the views would have been all the more remarkable.
There are also several restaurants and shops also at the summit. The cable car operates from 9am to 7pm every day throughout the year.

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The Vogtturm is folklore museum located in an interesting old tower that is part of the 16th century Rathaus of Zell-em-see. The tower actually was built long before the rest of the building and dates from the 9th century. Inside the museum, there is the usual array of costumes, decorative and popular artifacts that comes along with "folklore" museums. I was a little spent on such pieces by this time in my trip and found that most of it was unmemorable.

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The Petersfriedhof (St. Peter's Cemetery) in Salzburg is an ancient cemetery where many of the most important families of Salzburg have been buried. One such person is the sister of Amadeus Mozart, Nannerl Mozart an accomplished violinists in her own right.
On the grounds of the cemetery are several chapels, the most important of which are the Romanesque Chapel of the Holy Cross and St. Margaret's Chapel. The Petersfriedhof also has a small set of catacombs carved into the rockface of the hill pictured here. It was used by early Christians.

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Phone: 0662/84-45-78-0

During my castle viewing odyessy through Austria, I required a base for the Carinthia leg of my tour. I decided upon St. Veit An Der Glan because of its close proximity to the Hochosterwitz Castle and Friesach and for the fact that it was right on the rail line. Much to my pleasure, the town of St. Veit An Der Glan was rather pleasant with a lovely Hauptplatz and couple of interesting local attractions. All the more interesting was the town was having its annual oktoberfest. This was actually lots of fun and a great place to eat and drink after dark.
St. Veit An Der Glan does not seem to receive many English speaking tourists and is sort of off the beaten track since most people who visit Carinthia stay in Klagenfurt. I would advise anyone traveling through the region to stay here as the hotels are cheaper and it is more centrally located with Carinthia.

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Friesach is pictureques little town on the highway from Klagenfurt to Vienna. Friesach is one of the few walled towns in Austria and one of the very rare towns in all of Europe with its moat still intact. All though it is probably an overused phrase to call the town timeless, there is fact little in town that is modern. There are also very few tourist inspite of the fact that the town is excellent place to stop on the way to or from Klagnefurt. In fact there were so few English speaking tourist coming here that the no one in the tourist office spoke the language. Therefore though the town has been compared to Germany's Rothenburg, unlike that town you have this one to yourself to stroll around in and check out the sights.
The town dates from somewhere in the 9th century and prospered through out much of the medieval years. Today there is an assortment of fine Gothic churches and a grand castle to explore. I personally found this part of Austria to be quite enchanting and Freisach, with it quaint little hotels and guesthouses, make for a fine base for exploring it.
The one little problem with the website posted below is that it is only in German. Many this states how unexplored Friesach is by foriegn tourists.

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Website: www.friesach.at

Friesach has a wonderful castle that overlooks the town from a nearby hill called the Peterberg. The castle itself is called the Lavant. Much of it is in ruins however the keep is still standing. Within the castle walls is a fine 12th century church called the Peter's Church. The views of town from the castle walls are quite interesting. The castle is about a mile from the town centre of Friesach.

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Anyone who has read my pages thoroughly knows that I am a sucker for old ruins. Therefore I had to visit the Ausgrabungen (Excavations) at Magdalensberg while I was in the Carinthia region but I was somewhat at a loss on how to approach it. After checking out a map in the tourist office in St. Veit I discovered that you could hike most of the way there from Hochosterwitz Castle several kilometers to the north. This seemed like fun at first but it was humid that day and the walk, all up hill, turned into a somewhat sweaty outing. Finally after stopping at a cafe and old church on top of the mountain halfway to Magdalensberg, I arrived just before it closed for the day.
The site is the location of a Celto-Roman town that was located here from 100 B.C. to 40 A.D. It was more of a trading outpost for the Romans. The town was abandoned in the time of Tiberius and forgotten. Only in the 16th century was it rediscovered by a local farmer. Not until the late 19th century did scholars begin to excavate the site. The project really only began to flurish after the Second World War. The ruins include the foundations of temples, villas and a bathouse.
The ruins are open from 9am to 7pm from May to October. It cost 4 Euros to visit. During my visit I did not have any small cash and the koisk could not make change so the guardian, a very nice fellow, let me in for free.

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Phone: 04224/22-55

The Maria Saal is a seemingly ancient pilgrimage church located a few miles north of Klagenfurt. The original church was built in the 8th century and incorporated old Roman tombstones in the construction. The carving pictured here on the south facade of the building is an excellent example of one of these tombstones. It is suppose to portray a Roman postal wagon. The church was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is surrounded by fortified walls which were used to defend the church against maurading Magyars and Turks. The interior of the church has the usual Gothic religious relics but is most famous for a 1425 image of the Virgin Mary.

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