Gravelbike Wörthersee T2 | Gravel Speedway Rosental

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WORTH SEEING LOST PLACES AND INTERESTING STORIES ALONG THE TOUR

Note: We have marked some of the Lost Places as off-tour, because a logical routing has top priority for us. Not every gravel biker is interested in our exciting stories along the tours. All those we did not want to lead along the track in "dead ends".

Animal park, ruins and Rosegg Castle

A wall, in which much history is, one drives along in the Mühlbacher road in Rosegg. It was built from the stones of the old Rosegg Castle when Peter Ritter von Bohr had an animal park built around the ruins of the fortress starting in 1839. He was an illustrious person and made a name for himself first as a painter and businessman, but then also as a money forger. The zoo is still in operation and is a popular destination for excursions. It surrounds the keep of the old castle, which has remained standing. Today, the area belongs to the well-known noble family Liechtenstein, as does Rosegg Castle (400 meters from the route). The café operated in the building allows a nice insight into the love life of bygone times: The castle was built in 1772 by Count Franz Xaver Wolfgang von Orsini-Rosenberg for his Italian mistress, a certain Madame Lucrezia, and is therefore deliberately reminiscent of a villa in the south.

www.rosegg.at

Celtic World Frög

Elsewhere you can't see the forest for the trees, here you can't see the forest for the tumuli. In Frög, an entire open-air museum is dedicated to these actually very rare relics from the Hallstatt period. It is called Keltenwelt (Celtic World) and is located right next to the still clearly visible tumuli, some of which are almost 3000 years old. As many as 600 of these burial places, reserved for particularly well-heeled and/or important deceased persons, have been found here. The adjacent settlement from this era is considered to be the first capital of a dominion on Carinthian soil. How people lived there is shown in the Celtic World by means of reconstructions. The open-air museum is open from April to October.

www.keltenwelt.at

Culinary delights Restaurant & Pizza Francobollo

In St. Jakob im Rosental, the tour passes the most popular Carinthian pizzeria according to a 2018 Fallstaff vote. But in fact, Francobollo can come up with even more, for example, steaks at their finest. It's an unusual culinary combination, but it works: You can hardly get a seat here without a reservation. It's accompanied by hand-brewed beer from Carinthia's smallest barley juice producer, Malle-Bier in Villach.

www.francobollo.at

Chapel of Forgotten Souls | o u t t o u r ly

A five-kilometer detour by bike and then another 700 meters on foot lead to a lost place with a dark history. There was once a cemetery here, but nature has reclaimed the graves. Only the ruins of a chapel remain as a reminder of the 22 people buried on this hill. They were workers who died between 1903 and 1906 during the dangerous construction of the Karawanken railway tunnel, only a few hundred meters away, or relatives of the men employed there. Among those buried were also victims of violent acts in the vicinity of the construction site, three stillborn babies and an unknown man. After the completion of the tunnel, the chapel was forgotten before it came back into focus or into the field of fire during the Carinthian defensive struggle in 1919 - misused as a cover. During battles between Carinthians and soldiers of the Yugoslavian SHS state, who had occupied part of the railroad line, the church was severely damaged inside and out. What remained was a roofless skeleton to this day.

Everlasting rain | a u t o u r l i c h

A detour of about one kilometer (one third of it by bike, the rest on foot) leads near Maria Rain to the natural monument "Eternal Rain". Responsible for the phenomenon are several seepage springs, which form a so-called trickle-flood here. This is the name given to rocks that are permanently overflowed by water. Simplified, one could also say "Eternal Rain", as the vernacular has done here for centuries.

Hermit's cave

Almost directly on the route (150 meters on foot) is the Hermit's Cave. It consists of only one room measuring three by four meters and was possibly connected with a hermitage in Maria Rain, of which a legend tells:

Fearing the raids of Turkish hordes of horsemen, which were frequent at that time, the monks of the Viktring monastery brought their monstrance, which contained three drops of Christ's blood, to safety in the secluded hermitage. Many believers accompanied the solemn procession to Maria Rain, trampling down entire fields in the process. The peasants were not pleased about this, but in the end they went into the chapel to pray anyway. When they came out again, the blades of grass and grain in their fields had been straightened up. Only in the field of one farmer did they remain bent - he had previously scolded very much and even blasphemed God. The person concerned was very ashamed of heaven's punishment and vowed to build a beautiful church on the spot instead of the small chapel if his grass would also straighten up again. This happened and the farmer laid the foundation stone for today's pilgrimage church Maria Rain with the promised extension.

Of course, the story is not historically proven. But there must have been hermits. They were once not uncommon in the Alpine region.

Mysterious ruin

If you can live with unanswered questions, follow the path to which the path to the hermit's cave branches off, about 400 meters down the valley. At a stream that flows into the Drava, there is a ruin about which little (honestly: nothing at all) can be found out. The location initially suggests a mill, but examinations of the site with a metal detector have revealed metal-bearing slag. Thus, a forge was probably operated here, perhaps even - with the power of the water - a small "semi-automatic" hammer forge.

Lake dwellings in Keutschacher See

A real lost place, but unfortunately invisible, are the pile dwellings in Lake Keutschach. The remains of the settlement from the Neolithic period are located on the crest of an island that used to partially protrude from the lake. In the meantime, however, it lies almost two meters under water. Because of their great significance, the archaeological finds have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011. Researchers can only speculate as to the size of the village 6000 years ago. They have counted 1684 piles so far, but of course it is impossible to find out whether all the huts date from the same time and were continuously inhabited. What is certain, however, is that the Carinthian "islanders" already processed copper and most likely traded with it. The high arsenic content of copper objects from Lake Mondsee is consistent with that of the finds from Keutschach. Why people settled in lake dwellings remains questionable. Perhaps they felt particularly safe there because the settlements were easy to defend. Or it was a matter of mobility: goods could be transported more easily by water than on roads, which did not yet exist.

Lake dwellings at Keutschacher See

gold mine | a u t o u r l i c h

A detour, first 500 meters by bike and then about 700 meters by foot, leads uphill near Plescherken into a wooded area where treasure hunters have left traces. From the 18th century at the latest, copper, lead, zinc, silver and gold were mined here. The most striking features are the many pits. These are funnel-shaped craters in the forest floor. Some are only three meters in diameter, others up to seven. They are the remains of primitive open-cast mining: people simply dug a hole in the ground and pulled out what they could. In the meantime, trees are growing again in the pits and they do not differ from the rest of the forest except for the crater shape. Nevertheless, one should not jump around carelessly in them. There are areas where the funnels were formed by the collapse of galleries underneath. By the way, this safety advice applies worldwide.

The historical knowledge about the processes in the forest full of pits is scanty. The first documented mentions of mining in Plescherken date back only to the middle of the 18th century. Accordingly, from 1759 to 1762 it was under frohnfreiheit. The lead and silver yields were so low that the operators did not have to pay any rent. Economically, the large-scale search for gold by a "Parisian entrepreneur" according to contemporary sources was also unsuccessful 100 years later. In 1868, the operation was finally shut down. North of the pits, the terrain becomes steeper. Three adits can still be found there. The most spacious one leads only about four meters into the mountain. A fireplace and garbage indicate a recent use as a party location.

ATTENTION: Under the power line at the road begins the path to the northeast, over which you reach the old mine site after about ten minutes of walking. The pits and tunnels are "scattered" in the forest to the left and right of the paths. Do not forget a flashlight to shine into them! Do not enter the tunnels!

Kathreinkogel | a u t e r t o u r l i c h

A longer, but worthwhile detour - if you feel like it. Otherwise, a short hike to the Kathreinkogel on another day is recommended as an alternative. The starting point is always the intersection of the Farrendorfer Straße and the Katharinaweg, which is located directly on the route. You can turn off into the Katharinaweg and continue to the last farm.

Directly on the route is the Kathreinkogel, which is particularly striking due to its conical shape. No wonder that it has magically attracted people since time immemorial. The mountain has been inhabited since the 7th millennium BC. A footpath well equipped with information boards about the history of the area leads to the summit (walking time to the top is about 45 minutes). If you follow it, you will pass, for example, a Roman burial ground. 53 burials have been examined here by archaeologists. According to them, some people died by violence, probably during fights. One skeleton was found to have been stabbed in the skull by a lance, another by an arrow. On the summit plateau, around the church dedicated to St. Catherine, walls of the fort, also Roman, can be seen. The highlight for most visitors, however, is the so-called wishing tree of much more recent origin. The little cards, plaques and notes hanging on it sometimes move onlookers to tears, but can also bring a smile to their faces with wishes such as "I would finally like to retire".

On the Kathreinkogel - after a 2000-year break - the grain emmer is now being cultivated again. Like spelt, it is one of the most original members of the wheat family and was a staple food of the Romans. Although emmer is more complex to process than modern wheat, it is much better protected from harmful environmental influences. The ancient grain is sold from the farm and can be found, among other things, in St. Kathrein's Stone Age Bread.

https://www.facebook.com/Urkorn.Emmer