Gravelbike Wörthersee T3 | GRENZwertig über die Dolinzaalm

  • Tour 2 Cover
    © Andreas Irnstorfer

instructions

The beginning of the tour leads quite swinging over the Drava and Gail cycle path to Gödersdorf. From now on, the Lost Places discovery tour begins. We have planned six worthwhile stops for you up to the Italian border.

On the Ciclovia Alpe-Adria cycle path you ride along the old railroad line, which has been adapted into a cycle path, directly through a true Lost Places treasure, the "Tarvisio Centrale" train station. Snapshot guarantee directly on the route given ;)

After a stop for a typical Italian coffee, you have the opportunity to visit the mighty Fort Hensel near Malborghetto. For this you just have to stay in the village of Uggovizza about 500 meters longer on the bike path (= deviation from the original track).

From now on it gets really tough. You will now conquer about 800 meters of altitude over about 8 kilometers to the Dolinzaalm. Some ramps on the ascent are actually quite "borderline". If you push your bike here occasionally, you are definitely not one of the underdogs ;) Beautiful landscape belgeitet you down to Nötsch. We recommend a little refreshment at the Wiegele mill and bakery. Through the Schütt - the landslide area of the Dobratsch - and along the Gail and Drau the route leads you back to the Wörthersee.

Due to legal restrictions, the tour must be led on legal roads and paths. The percentage of paved road here is about 70% of the route length.

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additional_information

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. We did not want to lead all those along the track into "dead ends".

Finkensteiner Nudelfabrik | a u t t o u r l i c c u l i n a r i k

Not every factory is an industrial operation. Probably the most pristine and delicious example of this is in Finkenstein on Lake Faak. A 650-meter detour from the route there leads to the Finkensteiner Nudelfabrik. It has been in operation since 1895, when it was set up in an old hammer mill to use its hydroelectric power plant. The company is still run as a family business. Meanwhile, the fifth generation guards the secret recipes that are the basis of many pasta creations, some of which are made by hand. Attached to the factory are a delicatessen and a market café where, of course, the company's own pasta is served.

www.finkensteiner.at

Healing spring and pilgrimage church Maria Siebenbrünn

Not only the idyllic location of the pilgrimage church Maria Siebenbrünn on the green meadow with a view of the spectacular steeply sloping Dobratsch south face is wonderful. It is said that one or the other miracle has actually taken place here! Under the church, which was first mentioned in a document in the 14th century, there are seven springs (hence the place name Siebenbrünn). Their water is said to have a special healing power. It is said to alleviate eye diseases as well as diseases of the internal organs and at the same time to be a true fountain of youth. The inhabitants of the nearby village, who draw their drinking water from the springs, are said to live especially long. Whether you believe in it or not, you may fill up bottles at the freely accessible fountain in front of the church.

Chapel of the Cross

An extraordinary piece of Catholic faith and architecture is represented by the Chapel of the Cross in Arnoldstein. The abbots of the local Benedictine monastery repeatedly added parts to it in the 16th and 17th centuries, which is why it is referred to as the "three-part Chapel of the Cross." It is a kind of spiritual "drive in" - the smallest part is located, separated by the roadway, on the other side of the old main road (today Kreuzkapellenweg). All sorts of miracles are said to have occurred at the site over the centuries. One legend even tells of a cross that grew out of the rock without human intervention.

Mill ruins in the waterfall valley | o u t t o u r ly

500 meters off the route, the ravages of time are gnawing away at the mills of two ruins. They have not been in operation for decades. At least one served as a dwelling house afterwards. A single woman is said to have received suitors here, if one believes the conversations at the local inn tables. The current use of the Lost Places follows on from the narrative. The ruins, because they are easily accessible and yet secluded, are repeatedly the scene of erotic photo shoots. The idyllic waterfall at the end of the valley also serves as a backdrop for this. It can only be reached on foot, but also easily (about 10 minutes walk).

ATTENTION: The ruins are in danger of collapsing!

Bunker from the Second World War | a u t h o r t o u r ly

The huge rock on which the Arnoldstein monastery ruins are enthroned conceals a dark secret on its side facing away from the town center. During the Second World War, tunnels were blasted into the rock, which served as air raid shelters for the population. The entrance is about 100 meters off the track and can only be reached on foot via the meadow to the west of the Deberweg. In former times there was probably a ladder here, but with a little skill you can also get into the "hole" that way.

ATTENTION: Enter at your own risk! Do not forget a flashlight! There is often water inside, and it can also drip from the ceiling.

Arnoldstein Monastery Ruins

The ruins of the Benedictine monastery tower over the center of the market town of Arnoldstein. The history of the imposing complex dates back to 1085, when a castle still stood on the rock. In 1106 it was converted into a monastery. After its abolition in 1783, it housed apartments and chanceries, and in 1883 a major fire destroyed the roofs and wooden ceilings. Because no one was willing to raise money for its reconstruction, the building became a ruin. Since 1992 it has been restored by a private association with the support of the municipality and has become a popular venue for events. The ruins can be visited from May to September (please note the current opening hours on the Internet).

www.burgruine.at

Roman road near Thörl-Maglern

Between Arnoldstein and Thörl-Maglern the tour runs partly directly on the route of an ancient road. About 2000 years ago, it connected Aquileia on the Upper Adriatic, one of the largest and most important trading metropolises in the Imperium Romanum, with Virunum, the capital of the Roman province of Noricum north of today's Carinthian capital Klagenfurt. Traces of the road, which was much used until the Middle Ages, can be seen above all in the area of the naturally modern transformer hut. Here, driving grooves were cut into the rocky subsoil to keep the wagons on track.

Ristorante Ex Posta | K u l i n a r i k

Between the border crossing in Thörl-Maglern and Coccau, the first village on the Italian side, the Ciclovia Alpe Adria, the long-distance bike path between Salzburg and Grado, passes directly by Ristorante Ex Posta. In the lovingly renovated building there used to be a post office where horses were changed and passengers fed. Today, Alcide Cicuto cooks Friulian specialties here, such as gnocchi with ricotta from Ugovizza or salsicce with grilled polenta. Fish is not on the table. On both sides of the border, people nevertheless (or perhaps precisely because of this) rave about the top chef's almost fanatical striving for authentic regionality and the uncomplicated, down-to-earth ambience of his restaurant.

www.exposta.it

Abandoned train station Tarvisio Centrale

Without exaggeration one of the highlights on this tour: In the further course the Ciclovia Alpe Adria leads directly past the former Italian border station Tarvisio Centrale. It was closed in November 2000 because the trains now roll on a new track through the Canal Valley. What remains is a huge empty building with inventory, a furnished lost place. There may have been barriers at one time, but the entire area is now freely accessible - from the detention cell in the police station to the dispatch hall and the station manager's office villa. But it's not just photographers who hang around in this little ghost town. An office has been transformed by unknown persons into a playroom for adults with special preferences, using shackles and other devices.

ATTENTION: Enter at your own risk! If you want to risk a look into the buildings, you should have a flashlight with you and be appropriately careful. Because moisture seeps in at all corners and ends, neither floors nor ceilings are safe. Particular care should be taken when walking through the many shattered glass fronts.

Fort Hensel | a u t t o u r l i c h

A three-kilometer out-and-back detour leads from Ugovizza to a veritable adventure playground for lost-places fans and historians: the ruins of Fort Hensel near Malborghetto. In 1809, at this point of the then Austrian canal valley, Captain Friedrich Hensel, with only 400 soldiers, succeeded in holding an entire French army at bay for three days. Like most of his comrades, he was killed, which is why the fortress that was later built here was named after the hero. It existed until it was damaged by Italian artillery attacks during the First World War. The imposing remains are freely accessible and can be reached on foot (10 minutes climb, 20 minutes to the lookout point at the very top).

In addition to the Austrian ruins, however, one also stumbles across much more recent lost places there: Behind steel doors, some of which are only ajar, multi-story bunkers with long corridors blasted into the rock open up in the lower part of the complex. They lead to concrete embrasures whose camouflage flaps were "disguised" as false rocks with shotcrete. These parts of Fort Hensel were built after World War II, when the area had long been Italian and the NATO member state in the border area with what was then Yugoslavia was arming itself against a potential threat from the then Eastern Bloc. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the bunkers were abandoned by the military.

Directly on the SS13 road, just after the tunnel, an Austrian monument commemorates the events of 1809.

ATTENTION: Entering the buildings and bunkers is at your own risk. Do not forget a flashlight! It is easy to get lost, especially in the younger Italian bunkers.

Wiegele House and Museum of the Nötsch District | a u t h o r t o u r ly

150 meters off the trail through Nötsch is the Wiegele House, home to a bakery and the last active mill in the Gail Valley. The house and business have been family-owned since 1876, and nothing has changed in the way bread is baked since then. The best-known product of the Wiegele mill is polenta made from regional corn varieties. On the second floor of the house there is also the museum of the Nötsch Circle, which in the first half of the 20th century was a group of artists of Austrian-wide importance and above all shaped the art of the interwar period. The painters of this loose grouping were either born here, like Sebastian Isepp (1884 - 1954) and Franz Wiegele (1887 - 1944), or later moved to Nötsch, like Anton Kolig (1886 - 1950) and Anton Mahringer (1902 - 1974). The Nötsch circle represents an important phenomenon of Austrian painting in the first half of the 20th century and has especially influenced the art of the interwar period.

www.wiegelehaus.at

noetscherkreis.at

Schütt

On a length of about 20 kilometers the tour leads through the Schütt, which owes its name to a historical catastrophe. On January 25, 1348, the earth shook here so strongly that about 30 million cubic meters of rock broke loose from the south face of the 2166-meter-high Dobratsch and thundered into the Lower Gail Valley. There, the boulders, some as high as houses, formed a bizarre landscape. There was talk of up to 17 villages being buried. It is now known that the reports about the buried villages were deliberately spread false news, medieval "fake news" so to speak. They were spread by the Benedictine monastery of Arnoldstein, which owned the area. With the fairy tale of the terrible economic losses, it was possible to avoid various taxes and duties for almost 500 years.

Today, the Schütt is a nature reserve with a uniquely diverse landscape due to the catastrophe of that time: huge boulders alternate with screes, forests and meadows. Experts speak of a "hotspot of biodiversity". To the north, the area is bordered by what remains of the Dobratsch. The southern face of Villach's local mountain rises some 900 meters almost vertically into the air. It is responsible for another special feature of the nature reserve: the Mediterranean climate. Like a giant hotplate, the wall stores heat when it receives sunlight and releases it again when it gets colder. At the same time, it forms an insurmountable barrier to the north for certain plants and animals. Some species that come from the south become stranded here. These even include small scorpions.

Visitors on two legs prefer to cavort in the south of the Schütt anyway. Before the area was placed under protection, a run-of-river power plant was built here in 1911. The Gail was diverted for this purpose. Since then, it has flowed through a headrace channel over a length of almost three kilometers. The old riverbed, which serves as an overflow, is all the more beautiful and reminds one a little of the Caribbean. There are white sand beaches and small pools - only the temperature of the sometimes rather blue, sometimes rather green shimmering water is alpine undercooled even in high summer. Die-hard Schütt fans go swimming anyway, after having sunbathed extensively and often naked beforehand.

Alpine Farming | C u l i n a r i k

When locals walk, hike or bike through the Schütt, a stop at the Almwirtschaft is a must. The small inn in the countryside is reminiscent of an alpine hut, and not just in name. The menu is small, but totally regional. What is put on the table is homemade. The opening hours vary according to the season and are weather-dependent.

www.lisis-almwirtschaftschuett.at

Thurnegg Tower Ruin | a u t h o r t o u r l y

A 170-meter short detour leads to a now roofless watch tower and later residential tower. It originally belonged to Federaun Castle, which was located on the hill behind it. From the 12th century at the latest, the fortress and tower served to secure the bridge that led across the Gail River in this area, then as now. It existed - for a time even as a support for feared robber barons - until the middle of the 17th century. After that, only the three-story tower on the river can be found in documents under the name Thurnegg, until it, too, became a lost place.

Scrap tower Federaun

350 meters by bike and then about 200 meters on foot lead to an extraordinary industrial ruin, namely the remains of the Federaun Scrap Tower. It was once used for the production of shot, i.e. ammunition. In specially constructed towers like this one, molten lead was poured through a sieve from above for this purpose. Due to gravity and the previously added alloys, including arsenic, the drops formed into small balls in free fall. As such, they plopped into a cold water bath at the base of the towers to harden. The scrap tower in Federaun was in operation from 1824 to 1887. What has been preserved is the lowest masonry part of the structure. Please do not lick the walls! Lead and arsenic were handled here.

The footpath to the freely accessible ruins begins behind the house Unterfederaun 17, which is located directly on Kärntner Straße (B83). The gate of the wild fence can be opened. Please close it again!

safety_instructions

GRAVELBIKE

Gravel bike tours sometimes lead over unpaved ground or gravel roads. Therefore, these are only suitable for very experienced riders.

Some of the routes also lead along public roads. Here, of course, the StVO applies.

FairPlay! Don't be a spoilsport! Ride the tours in the forest and mountain areas exclusively during the day. Please respect the interests of hunters and property owners.

Always stay on the trails and save the whole community trouble with property owners.

Respect driving bans and temporary trail closures.

LOST PLACES

Many of the Lost Places described are only accessible by a short walk. Please keep to this and give your bike a short break.

Do not enter ruins or other objects in danger of collapsing.

Keep your hands off objects. Please leave objects in their place and do not take anything with you. Otherwise, the special character of the places will be quickly lost.

Be sure to follow our notes, tips and warnings at each Lost Places description.

Please keep in mind that you'll probably be walking with your cycling shoes on. Not all Lost Places are suitable for a walk or exploration with these. However, we have noted corresponding notes in the descriptions.

equipment

  • Cycling equipment and clothing suitable for touring (consider off-road capability!)
  • Telephone for emergencies
  • GPS bike computer with track of the respective tour
  • Bike lock, because some lost places are only reachable by a short walk
  • Smartphone or camera ; )
  • Flashlight or bicycle lighting to illuminate some lost places (e.g. tunnels)

suggestion

Be awesome! Show us your pictures from your tours and lost places in our region on your channels: #velowoerthersee #gravelwoerthersee

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