Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria

Klagenfurt am Wörthersee is the capital of Carinthia, Austria's southernmost state, and the country's gentlest state capital. The setting is unusual for the Alps — at the eastern end of the Wörthersee, one of the warmest large alpine bathing lakes in Europe (summer water temperatures reach 26°C), with Italianate Renaissance architecture rather than baroque, an Adriatic-leaning food culture and a slow, low-rise urban scale. The Lindwurm fountain on the Neuer Platz with its dragon and Hercules figures is the city's symbol; the Landhaus on the Alter Platz holds the Wappensaal whose walls are covered with the painted coats of arms of Carinthian estates. Beyond the centre, the Wörthersee promenade and lake steamers, the modernist wooden Pyramidenkogel observation tower across the lake, the Minimundus miniature park and the Magdalensberg archaeological site form one of Austria's most varied half-day networks.