Abstract:
The crystal lakes and muddied politics of the Austrian borderlands.
Cloud-enshrouded, snow-capped alps, valleys that the sun touches with soft rays in summer, deep and pure lakes, neat houses clustering around streams or clambering up the lower slopes – Austria invokes these and more in the imagination of travellers, if not locals. We came to Austria in the summer, in June. We were keen to avoid the traps of Vienna and Innsbruck, with their Disneyfied ‘authentic’ experiences that are now no different from any other city in Europe. So it was to Klagenfurt we came, close by the Slovenian border, indeed in a region – Carinthia (Karnten) – that overlaps with Slovenia. Except to put it that way is to turn the proverbial horse into a cart pusher, for the region itself is more ancient than both Austria and Slovenia, having originally been the Slavic principality of Carintania.
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