Klagenfurt am Wörthersee

The Neuer Platz is Klagenfurt's main square and the place most walks begin. Its fountain is the city's emblem: the Lindwurm, a winged dragon carved in the late 16th century from a single block of chlorite schist, with a Hercules raising his club against it. The dragon is the creature of the town's founding legend, said to have lived in the marshes before Klagenfurt was built. A bronze statue of Empress Maria Theresa stands on the same square.

The Alter Platz, a long pedestrian square a few minutes' walk from the Neuer Platz, is the oldest part of the town, with a baroque plague column among its burgher houses. After a fire in the early 16th century the town was rebuilt by Italian master builders, and behind many façades on the square and in the lanes off it lie arcaded courtyards, several of them reached through passageways from the street. Shops and cafés fill the ground floors; the shops close on Sundays.

The Landhaus at the end of the Alter Platz, a 16th-century building with two towers and an arcaded courtyard, is the seat of Carinthia's state parliament. Its great hall, the Wappensaal, is a painted room: the walls are covered with the coats of arms of the Carinthian estates, under a painted ceiling. The hall is open to visitors in the warmer months.

Two churches lie within a few minutes of the squares. The cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul was begun in the late 16th century as a Protestant church, which explains its wide, plain hall; the baroque stucco and ceiling paintings came after it passed to the Jesuits. The town parish church of St. Egid was rebuilt in baroque form after an earthquake at the end of the 17th century, and its vaults are painted.

The Benediktinerplatz in the old town holds the city's food market, where farmers from the surrounding valleys sell cheese, smoked bacon, bread and fruit. The dish to try in Klagenfurt is Kärntner Kasnudeln, dough pockets filled with curd cheese, potato and mint and closed with a hand-crimped edge. Reindling, a ring-shaped yeast cake rolled with cinnamon, sugar and raisins, is the Carinthian bake, eaten at Easter with ham, and fish from the Carinthian lakes is on many menus.

The Kreuzbergl, a wooded hill on the edge of the city within walking distance of the old town, is where Klagenfurt goes for a walk. Paths climb through the forest to a church on the hill, and clearings on the way look out over the roofs to the Karawanken.

From the western edge of the old town the Lendkanal runs about four kilometres to the lake, with a tree-lined path beside it for walkers and cyclists. It is the pleasant way to the shore — under an hour on foot, a quarter of an hour by bike — past villas and gardens, and on summer afternoons the path fills with people heading for a swim.

The canal reaches the lake at its eastern bay, where the city's lido spreads along the shore with lawns and wooden jetties; it opens in the bathing season, and in high summer the water reaches the mid-twenties Celsius. Beside it lies the Europapark, a broad lakeside park, and next to that Minimundus, a park of scale models of buildings from around the world, open from spring to autumn. In season, passenger boats leave the landing at the bay for the villages along the lake, which stretches about 16 kilometres west to Velden.