Friesach

Friesach is documented from 860 and is the oldest town in Carinthia, and it kept something almost nothing else in Austria has: a moat still filled with water running round a substantial length of the town wall, with towers along it. Three castles stand on the hills above - the Petersberg with its keep and museum, Geiersberg and Virgilienberg - and the town below has a Romanesque and Gothic church, a Dominican priory and a long market square. Since 2009 a project has been building a castle from nothing on a site outside the town using only techniques, tools and materials available around 1200 - no power, no modern machinery, everything hand-cut and hand-hauled - which is expected to take decades and can be visited as a working site with craftsmen at their trades.

History

In 860 King Louis the German gave the estate ad Friesah, from the Slavic breza, birch, to Archbishop Adalwin of Salzburg, and about 1076 Archbishop Gebhard built the Petersberg fortress above it to bar Emperor Henry IV from crossing the Alps; King Conrad III stayed here on his way back from the Second Crusade in 1149, as did Richard the Lionheart in 1192. Friesach received town privileges in 1215 and flourished on the trade route from Vienna to Venice, Archbishop Eberhard II made it the most important town in Carinthia, and the Friesach pfennig, minted from local silver, became the standard coin of the eastern Alps in the 13th century, until the town's weight declined after the Habsburgs became dukes of Carinthia in 1335 (Wikipedia, Friesach).

What's there

• A water-filled town moat - still running round a long stretch of the wall.
• Three castle hills - Petersberg, Geiersberg and Virgilienberg above the town.
• A castle built by hand - the medieval-methods construction project outside the town.
• Carinthia's oldest town - documented from 860, with Romanesque churches.

When to go

April to October; the building site works in the warm months. A day.

Practical notes

The castle project is a slow working site, not a finished building - visitors see foundations and craft work. Museums have seasonal hours. The town is quiet outside its summer festival.

Nearby

Sankt Veit an der Glan is south; Hüttenberg and the Görtschitz valley are east.

Key facts