Kostanjevica na Krki

The oldest town in Lower Carniola, its centre standing on an island in the Krka, which is why it is promoted as the Venice of the region. In the early thirteenth century the Carinthian duke Bernhard von Spanheim founded the Cistercian abbey of Fons Sanctae Mariae on the southern frontier of the March of Carniola, a claim he pressed against both the Patriarchs of Aquileia and the Dukes of Merania. The monastery, a daughter house of Viktring near Klagenfurt, was enlarged in Baroque style in the early eighteenth century. The whole town is a protected monument.