One day trip to Austria

A perfect spring Sunday was chosen for one day trip to Austria, more specific to the southernmost Austrian state – Carinthia. The state is well-known by the biggest Slovenian population in Austria because in 8th century there was the center of old slavic state Carantania, which is considered to be the first Slovenian state. During a long period of the history this region was populated by Slovenians. After World War I, in 1920 Austrians held a referendum among locals, the topic was about joining Austria or new country Yugoslavia, 59% of the people chose Austria.

Our travel passed along the following route:

• beautiful artificial Slovenian lake Jezersko;
• a small Austrian town Diex / Djekše – the northern point of the slovenian ethnical territory;
• a gorgeous Hochosterwitz castle / Ostrovica, unfortunately for us it was closed that day;
• a market town Maria Saal / Marija Sveta – where the first christian church in Carantania was built in 767 year;
• the capital of the federal state of Carinthia – Klagenfurt / Celovec;
• nice town Maria Worth / Otok – situated at the western shore of the Worthersee lake (one of the most popular holiday resorts of Austria);
• Slovenian-Austrian border – Wurzen Pass / Korensko sedlo;
• an alpine valley Planica (Slovenia) which is famous for ski jumping;
• Zelenci – source of the biggest slovenian river Sava;
• Potato monument in Šenčur, which was erected in 2008 to celebrate Empress Maria Teresa of Austria’s order to peasants to grow potatoes.

This part of Austria is quite similar to Slovenia by the nature and architecture. If you want to go to Austria for shopping and meeting some people – keep in mind that Sunday is not the best day for it.

The short funny video of our trip by Janis Aizpurietis:

P.S. Here it is a nice video of the hardest run in Europe which took place in Planica hill.